Palace hands off on move to abolish JDF

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang distanced itself from moves of two of its allies in Congress to abolish the Judicial Development Fund (JDF).

“The executive department has nothing to do with that. Maybe it has something to do with the call that all kind of funds should be stated in the national budget,” Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said yesterday.

Coloma was commenting on the separate proposals of Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. and Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas to abolish the JDF.

Coloma was asked about reports that the proposal had the go signal of President Aquino, who early this week threatened the justices with impeachment following the Supreme Court ruling against Malacañang’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

Fariñas and Tupas have filed separate bills on the JDF. Farinas’ proposal is to reform its administration, while the Tupas measure would abolish it and replace it with the Judiciary Support Fund.

However, both bills seek to remove absolute control of the fund from the Supreme Court. Collections would be transferred from the SC to the national treasury and disbursements would have to be in the judiciary budget approved by Congress.

Tupas headed the prosecution team while Fariñas was one of his deputies in the 2012 impeachment trial of former chief justice Renato Corona, whom Aquino wanted removed from office despite two Supreme Court rulings upholding his SC appointment.

“The power of the purse under our system of government belongs to the legislature. This is why the lawmakers should decide how national funds should be spent,” Coloma said.

Coloma nonetheless downplayed the possibility of a constitutional crisis between the executive and the judiciary.

“This is why the government is filing a motion for reconsideration of the ruling against DAP, also to reconsider the fact that every Filipino is benefiting from DAP funded projects,” Coloma said.

A senior administration lawmaker also called on the Supreme Court not to thumb down the reform and economic initiatives of the President.

Aklan Rep. Teodorico Haresco, chairman of the House committee on the Millennium Development Goals, hit critics on “their persistence on continuing the DAP brouhaha and their fixation to see heads rolling and blood flowing.”

“Let’s focus on inclusive and sustainable economic development and structural reforms that have been postponed for many decades,” Haresco said.

“Let the Aquino administration lead and end its term with the biggest economic bang the country has ever seen. Let legalese politics be. At least we have Aquino who’s unafraid to confront a major power or face a conflict, knowing avoidance won’t fix a problem like current SC interpretative leanings,” he added.

He said it is the SC – not Aquino – that has not moved on from the issue, adding the policy of culling and re-channeling savings has been the practice of previous administrations.

Haresco said the President was just expressing his frustration in his speech last week defending the DAP.

Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali also supported the President in saying that assistance to Filipinos should not be delayed.

“Through DAP, electrification projects were fast-tracked that contributed to country’s economic growth,” Umali said.

Illegal expansion

Fariñas, for his part, explained why he wanted the JDF abolished.

He said the SC had illegally expanded its JDF by identifying additional fees and income that accrue to the fund.

“They could not do that. They could not expand the funding sources for the JDF. They should have gone to Congress for the law that would identify additional funding sources,” the Ilocos Norte lawmaker told a news forum in Quezon City.

Fariñas said Presidential Decree 1949, which created the judiciary fund, does not expressly authorize the Supreme Court to “legislate” additional fees that would go to the JDF.

He quoted the pertinent portion of the decree: “The fund shall be derived from, among others, the increase in the legal fees prescribed in the amendments to Rule 141 of the Rules of Court to be promulgated by the Supreme Court of the Philippines.” – With Paolo Romero, Jess Diaz