SC favors Malacañang in suit vs P21-B CCT

The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday affirmed the legality of the P21 billion the Aquino administration appropriated under the 2011 budget to the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program thereby also validating the controversial dole out program of President Aquino in yet another likely show of pandering to Malacañang.

In a 12-page ruling by Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe, the SC en banc denied the petition filed by former Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and two barangay officials seeking to remove the said provision in the 2011 General Appropriations Act for being violative of the Constitution and Local Government Code.

“Petitioners have failed to discharge the burden of proving the invalidity of the provisions under the GAA of 2011,” the SC ruled.

A Commission on Audit (CoA) detailed several flaws in the CCT program mainly related to its weak implementation such as recipients who cannot be considered extremely poor based on the definition of the target households of the program, aside from unliquidated spendings.

Pimentel and his co-petitioners Sergio Tadeo and Nelson Alcantara had claimed the implementation of the said program should be stopped on the ground that it amounts to “recentralization” of government’s functions that have already been assigned to the local government units under the LGC.

Named respondents in the case were Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman.

The petitioners pointed out that instead of allocating the P21-billion budget directly to the LGUs to enhance the delivery of this devolved basic services, the government resorted to recentralization of its functions by providing the DSWD, as the lead implementing agency of the CCTP, with the full control over identification of beneficiaries and the conditions for the delivery of health care and social welfare and development services.

The petitioners argued that there is no other government agency but the LGUs that can identify the poorest of the poor in their localities who should benefit from the program.

The Court ruled that LGUs have no power over a program funded by the national government even if it involves the delivery of basic services under paragraph (c), Section 17 of the LGC. –Benjamin B. Pulta, Daily Tribune