PDAF law is void
PDAF
law is void
By BERTENI “TOTO” CATALUÑA CAUSING
President, Alab ng Mamamahayag (ALAM)
Author of the book “Simplified Libel Law in the
Philippines”
If
I file a petition to declare the nullity of pork barrel, will I succeed?
I love to answer it with BIG “YES,”
following an attitude of confidence and arrogance for what is just, true and
logical by the yardsticks of law, morality and the Constitution.
And as my analyses below show, yes I
will succeed.
First off, I am a proper party
because I am a taxpayer and the PDAF law or the Pork Barrel Law involves expenditures
of monies collected from taxes.
If I file, I will begin from the
basics that the powers of government are divided into three: (a) executive; (b)
legislative; and (c) judicial.
I need to stress so that all
understand it.
The
Executive Department headed by the President holds the powers to implement or
execute laws and the executable provisions of the Constitution.
The
Legislative Department, composed of the Senate and the House of
Representatives, holds the power to make laws that cannot be higher than any
provision of the Constitution.
The
Judiciary, headed by the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice, primarily holds
the power to make judgments on actual issues involving disputes about rights and
obligations under the laws made by the Legislative Department and under the
Constitution. It also has the power to interpret chaotic laws or Constitutional
provisions and the power to check grave abuse of discretion by the Executive or
any other office.
Let’s
focus on the hottest issue of the day: pork barrel or the so-called “Priority
Development Assistance Fund (PDAF)”.
First
thing: Pork barrel is a fund created by law to be spent by the lawmakers (Senators
and Representatives) in the manner of their own choice.
It
is the senators and congressmen who make the law creating PDAF and they made a
condition that the funds allocated for that shall be spent in whatever purpose
chosen by the lawmaker to whom it pertains.
The PDAF for each senator is P200,000,000 a year and for each
congressman P70,000,000 annually.
The
lawmaker can choose whatever project or purpose that the amounts pertaining to
him be spent for. With this, it gives a
substantive leverage or advantage to that lawmaker.
Even
if he or she will not make any gain from it in terms of money because he or she
is truly honest, it will nevertheless strengthen his political chances come
next election over an opponent who usually would use his own money to rely on
to put up a fight: unfairness, in short.
If
the lawmaker concerned is dishonest, he can pocket substantial sums from it by
means of fixing the biddings of supplies and constructions for his projects.
To
earn much bigger from his or her PDAF, as shown in the recent Janet Lim-Napoles
caper that is simple, the legislator may use a non-governmental organization
(NGO) or a foundation to which the funds shall be delivered by an implementing
agency (IA) upon an agreement that the foundation will take charge of
implementation and will submit liquidation reports to the IA and finally to the
Commission on Audit (COA). According to
the whistleblowers who exposed Janet, they did the liquidation report in the
meanest and most revolting manner by faking names of people to make it appear
that PDAF funds indeed were delivered to these people. They invented names of
persons who received the PDAF money or deliveries.
The
implementation of a PDAF project is not lawmaking. It is an executive function
because it merely involves the doing of the acts prescribed by the laws.
Neither
can the power of making a choice as to which projects shall be the receiver of
PDAF funds be considered as an act of not making a law.
So
that on the first score, the PDAF law is contrary to the Constitution that
specifically and exclusively vests the power to make laws on the legislative
alone and reserves the power to implement laws in the executive alone. The fact that PDAF law allows the lawmakers
to intrude into the territory of implementing or executing laws makes that
porky law unconstitutional.
By
the way, to understand what does it mean by unconstitutional, it means that it
is runs counter to what the Constitution commands.
The
second score that makes the PDAF law unconstitutional is the fact that it
provides for an undue or unconstitutional delegation of powers.
It
grants the legislator concerned the exclusive power to choose which projects to
be funded by his PDAF.
The
Constitution allows congressmen and senators acting officially as two bodies to
delegate or assign some tasks or powers.
Because
the Constitution restricts the power to make laws only in the legislative, it
necessarily follows that the only powers that can be assigned by the Congress in
every law they make are powers that are not considered legislative.
For
example, senators and congressmen make a law to give P1,000 every week to each
of all persons who have no work. If they delegate to the DSWD the power on how
to give the money, it is permissible.
And
in all cases thought about by the Constitution the delegations must be made to officials
or offices that are not lawmakers.
But
in the case of the PDAF law, it delegates the power individually to lawmakers themselves.
And the power that is delegated is the power to choose which projects to be
funded is a power to make law that provides which projects should be budgeted. This therefore makes the PDAF law unconstitutional
twice over.
The
third score why the PDAF law is unconstitutional is that it destroys the foundations
of the check-and-balance system.
Further,
in the setup of the government in terms of money releases, it is the DBM under
the Executive that releases the money for PDAF funds. If the PDAF law allows lawmakers to make
choices that would likely be a choice that will give the biggest profit to the
pocket, then it gives edge to the Executive to control the lawmakers into
submission by withholding or delaying the release of PDAF funds if the
lawmakers do not conspire with the President.
This scheme of things was perfectly used by all Presidents in the past,
particularly President-in-usurpation Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to defeat all
impeachment bids against her.
So
it is easy to see that this PDAF law destroys the Constitutionally-enjoined
check-and-balance system. The people can
no longer expect independent lawmakers. They can always wallow in poverty,
helplessness and pettiness in legislators who cannot speak their own mind.
The
fourth score why this PDAF law is unconstitutional is that it gives life to the
very evil the Constitution wants to kill: dynasty.
Why?
Because
of the loose and illegal-but-practiced-by-all-lawmakers system yet blindly accepted
by the public for decades now, the politicians in every province or city or
town have grown their own dynasty easily, making it hard for challengers to
defeat them from the thrones built by PDAF.
With
all the moneys pocketed from PDAF releases or the commissions gotten from PDAF
hard projects or even honest projects that make the good names of congressmen
and senators intact, and the natural greed for power motivate them to make a surer
path for their children, wives, brothers, parents or relatives to win all other
positions or succeed them for the purpose of gaining more power and more
wealth.
And
when the legislators elected to the Congress come from dynasties, no one can
expect that the senators and congressmen will pass a law to define dynasty.
Until
I think of more, these are my fundamental bases in filing a petition seeking
the Supreme Court to declare PDAF law unconstitutional.
So
it is clear.
PDAF
is void.
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