Belgica v Ochoa

Facts
● On September 3, 2013, petitioners Belgica, et al filed an Urgent Petition For Certiorari and
Prohibition With Prayer For The Immediate Issuance of Temporary Restraining Order
(TRO) and/or Writ of Preliminary Injunction, seeking that the annual "Pork Barrel
System," presently embodied in the provisions of the GAA of 2013 which provided for
the 2013 PDAF, and the Executive‘s lump-sum, discretionary funds, such as the
Malampaya Funds and the Presidential Social Fund,107 be declared unconstitutional
and null and void for being acts constituting grave abuse of discretion.

● Also, they pray that the Court issue a TRO against respondents Paquito N. Ochoa, Jr for
them to immediately cease any expenditure under the aforesaid funds.

● PDAF Article included an express statement on lump-sum amounts allocated for

individual legislators and the Vice-President.

● 2013 PDAF Article now allowed LGUs to be identified as implementing agencies if they
have the technical capability to implement the projects.

● Legislators were also allowed to identify programs/projects, except for assistance to

indigent patients and scholarships, outside of his legislative district provided that he
secures the written concurrence of the legislator of the intended outside-district,
endorsed by the Speaker of the House

Issue:
W/N Congressional Pork Barrel is unconstitutional
W/N Presidential Pork Barrel is unconstitutional

Ruling:
Congressional pork barrel is unconstitutional
(a) Violation on principles of separation of powers
(i) The enforcement of the national budget, as primarily contained in the GAA, is
indisputably a function both constitutionally assigned and properly entrusted to the
Executive branch of government.

(ii) In Guingona, Jr. v. Hon. Carague (Guingona, Jr.), the Court explained that the phase of
budget execution "covers the various operational aspects of budgeting" and
accordingly includes "the evaluation of work and financial plans for individual
activities," the "regulation and release of funds" as well as all "other related
activities" that comprise the budget execution cycle. This is rooted in the principle
that the allocation of power in the three principal branches of government is a grant
 of all powers inherent in them.

(iii) Unless the Constitution provides otherwise, the Executive department should
exclusively exercise all roles and prerogatives which go into the implementation of
the national budget as provided under the GAA as well as any other appropriation
law.

(iv) The Legislative branch of government should not cross over the field of
implementing the national budget since, as earlier stated, the same is properly the
domain of the Executive.

(v) 2013 PDAF Article – "wrecks the assignment of responsibilities between the political
branches" as it is designed to allow individual legislators to interfere "way past the
time it should have ceased" or, particularly, "after the GAA is passed."

(b) Non-delegability of Legislative Power.

(i) 2013 PDAF Article, insofar as it confers post-enactment identification authority to
individual legislators, violates the principle of non-delegability since said
legislators are effectively allowed to individually exercise the power of
appropriation is lodged in Congress.

(ii) That the power to appropriate must be exercised only through legislation is clear from
Section 29(1), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution which states that: "No money shall
be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law."

(iii) Essentially, under the 2013 PDAF Article, individual legislators are given a personal
lump-sum fund from which they are able to dictate (a) how much from such fund
would go to (b) a specific project or beneficiary that they themselves also determine.

(iv) The power of appropriation involves (a) the setting apart by law of a certain sum from
the public revenue for (b) a specified purpose.

(v) As these two (2) acts comprise the exercise of the power of appropriation, and given
that the 2013 PDAF Article authorizes individual legislators to perform the same,
undoubtedly, said legislators have been conferred the power to legislate which the
Constitution does not, however, allow.
Presidential pork barrel is unconstitutional
(a) The phrase "and for such other purposes as may be hereafter directed by the President"
under Section 8 of PD 910 constitutes an undue delegation of legislative power insofar
as it does not lay down a sufficient standard to adequately determine the limits of the
President‘s authority with respect to the purpose for which the Malampaya Funds may
be used.

(b) As it reads, the said phrase gives the President wide latitude to use the Malampaya
Funds for any other purpose he may direct and, in effect, allows him to unilaterally
appropriate public funds beyond the purview of the law