By Erika Mae P. Sinaking, Reporter and Pexcel John Bacon
THE Marcos administration will ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling that voided congressional increases in the 2024 and 2025 budgets and struck down key provisions of the 2026 spending law, the Palace said on Wednesday, maintaining that the administration did not break any law.
Palace Press Officer Clarissa A. Castro told a news briefing that the Office of the Solicitor General has been ordered to file a motion for reconsideration.
The Supreme Court has ruled that unprogrammed appropriations, standby items that can be tapped only when revenue targets are met, are not unconstitutional in themselves.
It nonetheless declared the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) unconstitutional over a P449.5-billion congressional increase in standby funds, and the 2025 GAA over a P17.99-billion increase in the Special Road Fund. It also struck down Special Provisions 1(a) and (b), Chapter XLIII of the 2026 GAA, and permanently barred the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Office of the Executive Secretary and the budget secretary from implementing them.
Ms. Castro said the Palace read the ruling as preserving the funding tool but making it unusable.
“The Supreme Court’s decision is clear: unprogrammed appropriations are not inherently unconstitutional,” she told reporters in Filipino. “However, we respectfully disagree with some parts of the ruling.”
She said the conditions laid down by the court go beyond those Congress set in 2015.
“Since 2015, Congress has allowed the release of funds when collections from even just one identified nontax revenue source exceed the target,” she said. “The Marcos administration simply followed this policy.”
The court held that unprogrammed funds may be used only after total collections exceed the total revenue target.
This is “in our view, an outright change to the conditions set by Congress,” the Palace officer said, noting it holds the power of the purse. “We respectfully ask the Supreme Court to review its decision,” she said.
Pressed on whether President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. bore responsibility for signing budgets later found unconstitutional, she said the administration “knows it violated no law and no provision of the Constitution.”
“We do not see any liability the President could incur if he was merely complying with the law,” she added.
The court said the doctrine of operative fact, which protects completed transactions under a law later voided, covers only irreversible programs whose beneficiaries acted in good faith.
It does not shield authors, proponents or implementers from criminal, civil or administrative liability unless a tribunal explicitly finds good faith.
Citing the same doctrine, Ms. Castro said no one will be held criminally or administratively accountable.
“If it was given to the people who were meant to receive it, who should be held liable? No one, because everything the administration did was in accordance with law,” she said, adding the government would account for the spending.
“It is the obligation of every public official to account for everything spent,” she said. “This is not confidential.”
HOLD UNRELEASED FUNDS?
Ms. Castro said the ruling is not final yet, allowing the government to continue spending under the 2026 GAA. “As of now, we can say it can still be spent,” she said, though the Palace has “no stance yet” on whether to spend or suspend the funds while the motion is pending.
Joy G. Aceron, convenor-director of transparency group Government Watch, however, said the government should secure unreleased funds, while noting that lawmakers should be held accountable for the misuse of unprogrammed appropriations after the ruling clarified the limits to Congress’ spending powers.
“Congress clearly abused its authority in the 2024, 2025 unprogrammed appropriations,” Ms. Aceron told BusinessWorld in a Facebook chat, adding the ruling underscored the importance of checks and balances by strengthening transparency, public participation, and accountability in the use of public funds.
Ms. Aceron urged the government to secure unreleased or unused funds from the P449.5-billion congressional increase in the 2024 budget and the P17.99-billion increase under the 2025 budget. She said the funds could be considered for basic services or measures to ease the burden of inflation and rising fuel prices.
With deliberations on the proposed 2027 national budget underway, Ms. Aceron said the Executive branch and Congress should ensure that the spending plan complies with the Supreme Court ruling.
“Civil society and the people must be vigilant to ensure that such congressional abuse will not happen again by monitoring and engaging the different levels of public financial management,” she said.
“For checks by civil society and opposition to more effectively prevent abuse in the future, those responsible must be punished and those who called out the wrong must be given support for them to be more effective in the future,” she added.
2027 BUDGET
Meanwhile, Senate President Pro Tempore Vicente “Tito” C. Sotto III said the Senate would follow the transparency measures adopted for the 2026 national budget in scrutinizing the proposed 2027 spending plan, including livestreaming budget deliberations.
“We’re going to make sure that it will practically be the same state the way we patterned the 2026 budget,” Mr. Sotto told reporters.
The Senate would not allow budget amendments that run counter to the Supreme Court’s ruling on unprogrammed appropriations, following allegations that certain budget items had been altered, he said.
“I’m sure Senator JV Ejercito will make sure that this is transparent and everything will be in order,” he said, referring to the senator overseeing the budget proceedings.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Joseph Victor “JV” G. Ejercito said the Senate would respect the Supreme Court’s ruling, adding that its implications for the proposed 2027 budget would be carefully studied.
“We will carefully study the court’s ruling, particularly its implications for the preparation, approval, and implementation of the 2027 national budget,” Mr. Ejercito said in a statement.
Both chambers of Congress refrained from increasing unprogrammed appropriations beyond the National Expenditure Program proposal during deliberations on the 2026 General Appropriations Act, he said.
“Let me assure the Filipino people: What transpired in past budget deliberations will not happen under my watch in the proposed 2027 national budget,” he added.