Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel, in a media interview, raised three legal objections against the constitutionality of the 2025 budget.

Pimentel said the spending law is unconstitutional on the following grounds:

  1. That Congress increased the unprogrammed appropriations (UA) beyond what the president proposed, contrary to Section 25(1), Article VI of the Constitution.
  2. That infrastructure got a higher allocation than the education sector, contrary to Section 5(5), Article XIV of the Constitution.
  3. That the president exceeded his authority in certifying the bill as urgent, contrary to Section 26(2), Article VI of the Constitution.

While Pimentel has yet to formally challenge the validity of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), he said he will do so soon. We don’t know yet the fullest extent of Pimentel’s arguments or any material facts that the public doesn’t know. However, the Supreme Court has, on certain occasions, had the chance to shed light on those certain constitutional provisions. Without preempting Pimentel’s presumptive petition, here are some relevant case law relevant to the three arguments.

On the increase of the UA by Congress

Section 25(1), Article VI of the Constitution provides:

The Congress may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for the operation of the Government as specified in the budget. The form, content, and manner of preparation of the budget shall be prescribed by law.

We focus our analysis on the first sentence. Unfortunately, the court has yet to lay down a case law interpreting Section 25(1), an obscure constitutional provision.

A plain reading of the provision simply states that once the president sends his budget proposal, Congress may not increase it. In other words, the president’s National Expenditure Program (NEP) is a ceiling that Congress cannot go beyond.

That, of course, is not the end of it. The provision can be interpreted in many ways: Is it directory or mandatory? That the provision used the word “may” did not make it less ambiguous. The scope is also unclear: Does it pertain to the entire appropriations bill or just certain items?

It is of my opinion that the provision only applies to the entire appropriations bill, and not to line items. To construe the provision as a prohibition to Congress from increasing any line item is an impermissible encroachment of its plenary power to legislate. To strictly apply Section 25(1) to individual line items would, in effect, leave Congress with whatever the president has written in the NEP–Congress can only either retain the funding or decrease the funding levels. This interpretation will effectively bind Congress’s decisions to that of the president. Lest we forget that legislating the budget is a shared responsibility of the legislative and executive branches.1

This construction makes more sense and is workable. “The Constitution is a framework of a workable government and its interpretation must take into account the complexities, realities and politics attendant to the operation of the political branches of government.” 2

Moreover, setting the ceiling of the GAA is inherently an executive function as it necessarily involves the determination of how much money the Treasury has, and has custody of the “receipts from existing and proposed revenue measures.” 3 This is how it would play out in practice:

Suppose President X submits a NEP, worth P10 million, consisting of appropriations for education (P6 million), health (P3 million), and defense (P1 million). Under the strict interpretation, Congress cannot, for instance, move P1 million from education to defense as this would effectively increase the president’s recommendation for defense budget from P1 million to P2 million. This is akin to saying that Congress has a very limited role in making policy decisions over the budget bill.

Hence, if Section 25(1) is construed as applicable over the entire NEP, it merely connotes that Congress cannot exceed President X’s total allocation of P10 million. However, Congress has the discretion to change the line items, such as P5 million for education, P2 million for health, and P3 million for defense.

As to the issue of whether Section 25(1) is mandatory or directory, a cardinal rule in statutory construction tells us that “may” implies discretion, while “shall” implies a command. Hence, at its surface, the provision gives Congress the discretion to increase or not the appropriations recommended by the president. Nevertheless, discretion “is not a free-spirited stallion that runs and roams wherever it pleases but is reined in to keep it from straying. In its classic formulation, discretion is not unconfined and vagrant but canalized within banks that keep it from overflowing.” 4

The facts are uncontroverted: The president proposed P158.7 billion of UA, and Congress inflated it to P531.7 billion. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vetoed P168 billion of UA, P363.7 billion of UA is left.

This amount is still more than double of what the president recommended. If this isn’t grave abuse of discretion–which is a basis for striking down legislative acts5–on the part of Congress, how much is?

While Congress holds the power to legislate, it has no authority to substitute its judgment–at more than twice the cost–much less to violate Article VII, Section 25(1) by overriding the president’s NEP.

On the budgetary priority

The Senate minority leader further assailed the 2025 GAA because it violated the constitutional provision that:

The State shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education and ensure that teaching will attract and retain its rightful share of the best available talents through adequate remuneration and other means of job satisfaction and fulfillment.6

In the 1991 case of Guingona v. Carague,7 the Supreme Court had a chance to interpret this provision. Guingona dealt with the validity of the 1990 GAA, where debt servicing (P233.5 billion) had a significantly higher allocation than the education department (P27 billion).

In dismissing the challenge and upholding the validity of the 1990 GAA, the court held that the education department having the highest budgetary allocation among all department budgets is a “clear compliance with the aforesaid constitutional mandate according highest priority to education.” Hence, to satisfy Article XIV, Section 5(5), the education department must have the highest budget among all other departments.

The education sector, consisting of the Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education (and the state universities and colleges), and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, has a combined 2025 budget of P913,288,286,000. Meanwhile, the Department of Public Works and Highways alone has P1,087,698,747,000.8

Clearly, this does not pass the Guingona test.

However, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has proffered a different computation of the education sector–in addition to the aforementioned agencies, the government added the budgets of the Local Government Academy, Philippine National Police Academy, Philippine Public Safety College, National Defense College of the Philippines, Philippine Military Academy, Philippine Science High School System, and Science Education Institute to arrive at their cumulative education budget of P1.055 trillion. According to the DBM secretary, the DPWH is left with P1.007 trillion, hence, the education budget is now the biggest allocation.9

It is not up to the executive branch to say what the constitution is. Concededly, Guingona did not define what’s the scope of “education” in Section 5(5). Moreover, PHILCONSA v. Enriquez tells us that “Section 5(5), Article XIV of the Constitution, is merely directory.”10

On the presidential certification

Finally, Pimentel argues that the passage of the GAA had a procedural infirmity because Marcos certified it as urgent.

This certification by the president, that the bill’s passage is needed to meet a public calamity or emergency, dispenses the requirement of a printed copy and reading the bill on separate days.11 Hence, the budget bill can be voted on second and third reading within a single day.

Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J., however, noted that the decision in Tolentino v. Secretary of Finance did not acknowledge the fact that the presidential certification under Section 26(2), Article VI may only be done if the bill is required to “public calamity or emergency.”12 Clearly, it’s not a carte blanche grant of power to the president–there must be some standard at which the power’s exercise must be based on. This, however, the Tolentino decision declined to do.

The president’s certification of the 2025 budget bill did not explicitly mention that the bill’s passage will meet a public calamity or emergency.

In Tinio v. Duterte,13 the petitioners tried to assail the validity of the TRAIN Law by questioning President Rodrigo Duterte’s certification of the measure. The court, however, did not even rule on the validity of Duterte’s certification. Hence, jurisprudence remains silent on the extent of the president’s certification power.

The general tenor of the Tolentino court, nevertheless, is to uphold the president’s certification. Importantly, in Tolentino, the court noted that the Senate, as an institution, did not even contest the president’s certification.

  1. See, e.g. CONST. art. VI, § 29(1), and CONST. art. VII, § 22. ↩

  2. PHILCONSA v. Enriquez, 305 Phil. 546 (1994). ↩

  3. CONST. art. VII, § 22. ↩

  4. Almario v. Executive Secretary, 714 Phil. 127, 163 (2013). ↩

  5. CONST. art. VIII, §1. The provision allows the judiciary to determine whether a government branch has committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction. ↩

  6. CONST. art. XIV, § 5(5). ↩

  7. Guingona v. Carague, 273 Phil. 443 (1991). ↩

  8. This amount excludes the infrastructure programs worth P26,065,700,000 that the president vetoed. ↩

  9. Darryl John Esguerra, Education has highest budget at P1.055-T after DPWH cuts, PHILIPPINE NEWS AGENCY, December 30, 2024, available at https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1240748 (last accessed Jan. 3, 2025). ↩

  10. PHILCONSA, supra note 2. ↩

  11. Tolentino v. Secretary of Finance, 305 Phil 686 (1994). ↩

  12. JOAQUIN G. BERNAS, S.J., THE 1987 CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES: A COMMENTARY 785-787 (2009). ↩

  13. Tinio v. Duterte, G.R. No. 236118, Jan. 24, 2023, available at https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocs/1/69133 (last accessed Jan. 3, 2025). ↩

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