COMMENTARY: Philippine high court "may have overreached itself"
The
Philippine Supreme Court recently ruled that some aspects of President
Benigno Aquino's Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was
unconstitutional, reasoning that it sidestepped the country's General
Appropriations Act (GAA). Solita Collas-Monsod, a leading economist in
the Philippines and former director-general of the National Economic
Development Authority, says the DAP -- misrepresented as a pork barrel
scheme by some political groups -- "was an attempt to make the budget
process more flexible, allowing for innovation in the delivery of public
services". Prof. Collas-Monsod continues:
"In
trying to tie the hands of a too-powerful executive (not only President
Aquino), the high court may have overreached itself when it pronounced
that all items in the DAP had no appropriations cover (that absolute).
This, after the [Department of Budget and Management (DBM)] had
submitted the list of projects undertaken by DAP and pointed out where
they fell under the GAA. In other words, the Court thought it knew
better than the practitioners in the budgeting field, and in effect said
the DBM was lying. Since when did Supreme Court justices become budget
experts?"