Araullo vs Aquino

FACTS: Maria Carolina Araullo, Chairman of Bagong Alyansang makabayan, filed a petition with the SC
questioning the validity of Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) because it violated the
constitutional rule which provides that “no money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance
of an appropriation made by law.” The issue was due to the revelation of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada through
his privilege speech in the Senate that 50 million was allotted to them as an incentive for voting in favor
of the impeachment of Cgief Justice Renato Corona. Responding to his revelation, Secretary Florencio
Abad of the DBM immediately issued a public statement explaining that the funds released to the
Senators were part of the DAP but was disbursed upon their request.

DAP is based on certain laws particularly the General Appropriations Act (GAA) (savings and
augmentation provisions thereof), Sec. 25(5), Art. VI of the Constitution (power of the President to
augment), Secs. 38 and 49 of Executive Order 292 (power of the President to suspend expenditures and
authority to use savings, respectively). The economic situation prevailing in the middle of 2011 thus
paved the way for the development and implementation of the DAP as a stimulus package intended
to fast-track public spending and to push economic growth by investing on high-impact budgetary
PAPs to be funded from the savings generated during the year as well as from unprogrammed
funds. DAP was to be implemented and funded by declaring savings coming from the
various departments and agencies derived from pooling unobligated allotments and
withdrawing unreleased appropriations; (2) releasing unprogrammed funds; and (3)
applying the savings and unprogrammed funds to augment existing P APs or to support
other priority PAPs.

Issue: Whether or not the DAP violates Sec. 29, Art. VI of the 1987 Constitution, which
provides: “No money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an
appropriation made by law.”

Held: DAP did not violate Sec. 29, Art. VI of the 1987 Constitution DAP was not an
appropriation measure; hence no appropriation law was required to adopt or to implement it.
No law was necessary for the adoption and implementation of the DAP because of its being
neither a fund nor an appropriation, but a program or an administrative system of prioritizing
spending; and that the adoption of the DAP was by virtue of the authority of the President
as the Chief Executive to ensure that laws were faithfully executed. In such actions, the
Executive did not usurp the power vested in Congress under Section 29(I), Article VI of the
Constitution. In DAP no additional funds were withdrawn from the treasury otherwise, an
appropriation made by law would have been required.