2 lawmakers seek repeal of automatic appropriation PDs

MANILA, Philippines - Two Mindanao lawmakers called yesterday for the repeal of provisions of three Marcos-era presidential decrees authorizing the Chief Executive to automatically allocate payments for the country’s debts.

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and his brother Maximo, who represents the party-list group Abante Mindanao, filed House Bill 1717 urging their colleagues to restore to Congress the power to appropriate all taxpayers’ money.

They said the Constitution provides that “no money shall be paid out of the treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.

“Unfortunately, that power of the purse of Congress has been diluted by Presidential Decrees 81, 1177 and 1967 because they mandated the automatic appropriation of debt payments and converted Congress into a mere rubberstamp,” they said.

The two lawmakers said that interest payments alone eat up a third of the annual national budget, which principal payments make up roughly another third.

They added that for this year, principal and interest payments would amount to more than P600 billion, funds whose expenditure the representatives of the people must approve.

The Rodriguez brothers noted that there have been several attempts in the past to have the Supreme Court scrap the Marcos decrees “but to no avail as the consistent response had been that if we want to rid ourselves of these bad laws, we must repeal them.”

They quoted the Supreme Court as saying in one decision that the three decrees “constitute lawful authorizations or appropriations, unless they are repealed or otherwise amended by Congress. The Executive was thus merely complying with the duly to implement the same.”

In a subsequent case, the high tribunal ruled that “a provision in an appropriations act cannot be used to repeal or amend other laws,” they said.

“Yes, these PDs were crafted during the one-man rule of President Marcos and thus should be stricken off our statute books now and forever. Verily, this bill will once and for all cleanse our statute books of the remaining vestiges of martial law and restore to Congress its enviable, absolute and exclusive power of the purse,” they stressed.