Lagman questions constitutionality of GOCC Law

Manila, Philippines – House Minority Leader and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman has challenged before the Supreme Court the legality of Republic Act 10149 or the GOCC Governance Act of 2011 signed by President Aquino last month.

Lagman said “scandalously huge salaries, allowances and perks” of some government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) “should not be tolerated and must be rectified” but “a wrong cannot be righted by another wrong.”

He said RA 10149 is a “compendium of sweeping, wayward, illegal and unconstitutional solutions to a problem which is grave but not widespread.”

He also described the law as an “indiscriminate wrath against the entire GOCC sector.”

Lagman told the SC in his petition for certiorari and prohibition that the law violates the security of tenure of civil servants, provides for undue delegation and utter abdication of legislative powers, and supplants the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission through the creation of the Governance Commission for Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations.

The petition also asked that respondent Executive Secretary Pacquito Ochoa Jr. be enjoined from enforcing the law and respondent Budget Secretary Florencio Abad be restrained from releasing funds to support its implementation.

Lagman also said the enactment of the law was “fast-tracked in order to create vacancies in the helm and governing boards of GOCCs to accommodate partisans of the Aquino administration who are seeking government jobs after the employment ban on election losers had elapsed last May.”

Lawyers Johween Atienza and Tristan Frederick Tresvalles assisted Lagman in filing the petition docketed as G.R. No. 197422. –Paolo Romero (The Philippine Star)