Palace, SC rift widens

MALACAÑANG REJECTS DIALOG WITH JUSTICES

A heated exchange erupted anew between the Palace and the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday as SC administrator Midas Marquez indicated the Palace was shooting from the hip without knowing the details of the case when it commented on the tribunal’s order to recall an earlier ruling for the reinstatement of Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines (FASAP) members in the flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) while presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda insisted the high court committed a blunder and should “redeem itself.”

Lacierda added Chief Justice Renato Corona should stop making an issue out of its budget because this has long been clarified by Congress and by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and should just redeem itself for issuing questionable decisions citing the case of FASAP and the PAL.

“When is a final decision final?” Lacierda said, adding that President Aquino himself is utterly confused on the SC’s FASAP ruling.

Marquez said Malacanang is the one mistaken in claiming that Corona was sidestepping the issue on its recall order on FASAP by citing the budget issue.

“It cannot be sidestepping the issue. The chief justice has

nothing to do with the Fasap case since he already inhibited on that since 2008. Maybe it would be best for them to know the details first before speaking to the media,” Marquez said.

“It was not reversed. The resolution was just recalled so that the (full-court) will deliberate on that case after a misapplication of rules was found,” he clarified.

The SC official even criticized and wondered if the Palace was not too busy dealing with many pressing national concerns.

“They also have their owns issues. It would be best to address those first before giving unsolicited advice on something they don’t really comprehend,” Marquez suggested.

Corona earlier urged judges to stand up and fight for the independence of the judiciary from “those who pervert democracy and the constitution for their selfish political ends.”

“Never before has the entire judiciary, even in the days of martial law, been subjected to so much disrespect and lack of civility from sectors we sincerely consider to be our partners in nation-building,” Corona lamented.

He said there have been in the past few months “insidious attempts to undermine, destroy even, the independence of the judiciary.”

Among those he cited were “means as forcing us to beg for the funds guaranteed to us by the Constitution or the repeated threats of impeachment based on a distorted and power-tripping interpretation of ‘breach of public trust.”

Saying its “already a settled issue,” Lacierda also rejected proposals for the Executive and the Judiciary to sit down for a dialog to thresh out the conflicts between the two branches of government while insisting that the SC fumbled in its decision.

Lacierda said that there’s no need fr the Executive to sit down with the SC Justices because as far as the Aquino government is concerned, there’s really nothing to talk about even in relation to Corona’s gripes over their budget which was allegedly slashed by the Department of Budget and Management.

Similarly, Budget Secretary Florencio “ Butch” Abad issued a statement denying claims made by Corona that the Aquino administration has been trying to undermine the independence of the judiciary.

“I’m surprised over the strong words employed by Chief Justice Renato Corona in relation to the issue revolving around the unfilled items in government. This is already a settled issue,” said Abad.

“It is not out of lack of respect for the Judiciary and the Constitutional and Fiscal Autonomy Group (CFAG), nor is it an insidious attempt to undermine their independence, that this budget reform measure is being proposed. On the contrary, it is out of the government’s commitment to pursue transparency and accountability in the use of public funds, including its concern over the repeated failure of agencies of government to fill up items that they had proposed for funding by Congress,” he added.

In his briefing, Lacierda maintained that there’s no need to hold a dialog with the judiciary because it has been clearly settled that the Palace would fully observe the fiscal autonomy of the SC provided that it would comply with the condition that requires the High Court to report “on a quarterly basis” on where it would be spending its budget.

“This is already a settled issue. We have already agreed with the House and the House that we will respect this fiscal autonomy subject of course to the request or to the condition that they submit a report on a quarterly basis on where the money has been used,” said Lacierda.

“Fiscal autonomy will be observed. But however, recognizing the insistence of this administration on transparency and accountability, the Senate and the House have agreed as well, to require all agencies, apart from the judiciary and all the autonomy groups, to submit a quartely report on how the funds were used, “ he added.

In a statement, Abad said that as as “a demonstration of the administration’s sincere belief that the principles of transparency and accountability and fiscal autonomy are not mutually exclusive, it has acceded to a proposal from both the House of Representatives and Senate to arrive at what the administration believes is a broadly-acceptable resolution of the issue.”

Abad said that the Aquino administration was elected into office in an unprecedented and historic way as an expression of the intense desire of the Filipino people to restore decency and integrity in governance. This is reportedly the reason why the administration has been unrelenting in stamping out abuse of official power and corruption in government.

“I cannot understand why it is still being raised by the Chief Justice. I hope this is not being raised by the Chief Justice to divert people’s attention from current issues that the Supreme Court is being confronted with. At the end of the day, all officials and agencies of government—whether they enjoy fiscal autonomy or not—have a responsibility to account to the people on how they have used the precious tax money entrusted to them,” Abad said.

The provision in the proposed budget requiring the judiciary and constitutional offices to make a periodic report on the use of billions of funds for unfilled positions is likely to be deleted, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, meanwhile, said.

“We will take it out (when we pass the budget into law),” he said.

Enrile made the assurance in the light of the renewed tension between Malacanang and the Judicial branch over row in the planned impounding of the latter’s share in the miscellaneous personnel benefits fund (MPBF) and most recently, what Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona’s statements retaliating at the Executive’s criticisms on the high tribunal’s blunder in the case of the retrenched flight attendants and stewards of Philippine Airlines (PAL).

The upper chamber chief, who raised the unconstitutionality of the move that will effectively clip the fiscal autonomy of the judiciary and constitutional offices in handling MPBF funds, said he empathize with the Chief Justice on the matter.

“I can understand the position of the chief justice. I think it’s about time that we stop all of these wranglings. So it’s unfortunate tha we reached this point,” Enrile said, reacting to the verbal exchanges between Palace officials and Chief Justice Corona.

But the Senate leader downplayed any implication on the Executive of the strong words uttered by Chief Justice Corona, saying that the judiciary will not allow any illegal act or legislation to prosper and will stand by its mandate of upholding the Constitution and the rule of law.

“It’s not alarming. Well he is just saying that ‘enough, the court will (do what it ought to do…)’ and it’s true, the court has enough power to use to put things in line if it wants to. The court tells the entire government what the Constitution says and you cannot change it,” said Enrile.

The Senate chief pointed out that the issue of the supposed impounding of the more than P2 billion allotment to the judiciary of MPBF and P4.97 billion to the constitutional offices, has already been resolved when the House of Representatives ordered the return of these provisions to the original set-up and will no longer form part of the lump sum appropriations amounting to over P101 billion.

Enrile said it was just but a proper move by Congress since this is in line with the provisions dictated by law on the allocation and disposition of funds in the national budget.

“That’s part of the constitutional law, the (principle on the) separation of powers. Congress is the one that provides money to the Executive. It is the one that raises money for the government. It’s the one that provides money for the government, for the Executive and I think that it’s not proper that the Executive will control the budget of a co-equal department, especially in the case of the judiciary. It’s very clear in the Constitution that you cannot reduce the budget of the judicial department of the government. They have fiscal autonomy including the constitutional bodies,” he said.

Even the two Houses of Congress cannot be subjected to such arrangement, Enrile said.

Following the lower house’ passage of the budget measure on third reading recently, the chair of the Senate finance committee, Sen. Franklin Drilon said they will adhere to the constitutional provision which grants fiscal autonomy to the constitutional bodies.

Drilon, however, underscored the need to provide for transparency in the budget “so that we will know through a reporting system how the budget allocated to each agency is being spent.”

Drilon maintained that the legislature, “as the guardians of the purse, we have the right require that such usage of the funds be made transparent.”

“I would advocate strongly that there will be transparency,” added Drilon.

Enrile, retorted, saying that the Executive cannot prevail upon Congress, the judiciary and constitutional offices in insisting and imposing the regular reporting of the use of such funds.

“We are not, with due respect, under the Executive department,” he said.

“That’s why we have an auditing office. Let the auditing office determine whether we are committing any violation of our ethical conduct using the money of the people. That’s not the function of the Executive department,” Enrile added.

Constitutional offices that enjoy fiscal autonomy such as the Supreme Court, Office of the Ombudsman, Civil Service Commission, Commission on Audit, and Commission on Elections, have protested what they called “budget cuts,” saying the fund should be automatically and unconditionally released to them.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) had said they will release funds for state agencies in the MPBF when actual hiring of unfilled positions is done. A total of P23.4 billion in funding requirement for 66,957 unfilled positions in the entire bureaucracy is included in a special purpose fund called the MPBF. –Benjamin B. Pulta and Virgilio J. Bugaoisan, Angie M. Rosales, Gerry Baldo, Daily Tribune