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Sanchez vs. Commission On Audit 552 SCRA 471 2008 Facts: (I Just Copied This From The Net Hehe Taas Kaayo Na Kaso Man Gud Ni

The Supreme Court ruled the transfer of funds from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to the Office of the President was unconstitutional and invalid for the following reasons: 1) Only the President, heads of constitutional commissions, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House are authorized to transfer appropriations according to the Constitution, and the transfer was approved by the Deputy Executive Secretary, not the President. 2) Transfers can only be made from savings in other items of the same office's appropriation, but the DILG transferred funds at the beginning of the budget year before any savings could exist. 3) The transferred funds were not used in accordance with the purposes set out

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209 views3 pages

Sanchez vs. Commission On Audit 552 SCRA 471 2008 Facts: (I Just Copied This From The Net Hehe Taas Kaayo Na Kaso Man Gud Ni

The Supreme Court ruled the transfer of funds from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to the Office of the President was unconstitutional and invalid for the following reasons: 1) Only the President, heads of constitutional commissions, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House are authorized to transfer appropriations according to the Constitution, and the transfer was approved by the Deputy Executive Secretary, not the President. 2) Transfers can only be made from savings in other items of the same office's appropriation, but the DILG transferred funds at the beginning of the budget year before any savings could exist. 3) The transferred funds were not used in accordance with the purposes set out

Uploaded by

Dawn Jessa Go
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Sanchez vs.

Commission on Audit
552 SCRA 471
2008

Facts: ( I just copied this from the net hehe taas kaayo na kaso man gud ni
hahaha, pero makuha na diri sa facts)

In 1991, Congress passed Republic Act No. 7180 (R.A. 7180) otherwise
known as the General Appropriations Act of 1992. This law provided an
appropriation for the DILG under Title XIII and set aside the amount of
P75,000,000.00 for the DILG's Capability Building Program. On 11 November
1991, Atty. Hiram C. Mendoza (Atty. Mendoza), Project Director of the Ad Hoc
Task Force for Inter-Agency Coordination to Implement Local Autonomy,
informed then Deputy Executive Secretary Dionisio de la Serna of the proposal
to constitute and implement a "shamrock" type task force to implement local
autonomy institutionalized under the Local Government Code of 1991. The
proposal was accepted by the Deputy Executive Secretary and attested by
then DILG Secretary Cesar N. Sarino, one of the petitioners herein, who
consequently issued a memorandum for the transfer and remittance to the
Office of the President of the sum of P300,000.00 for the operational expenses
of the task force. An additional cash advance of P300,000.00 was requested.
Upon post-audit conducted by Department auditor Iluminada M.V. Fabroa,
however, the amounts were disallowed.

Issue:
Whether or not the transfer of funds from the Department of Interior and
Local Government to the Office of the President is valid and constitutional
considering the petitioner’s contention that the transfer of funds was never
repudiated by the President, and considering further respondent’s contention
that there is no legal basis for the transfers in question because the Fund was
meant to be implemented by the Local Government Academy, and it also
added that the action done is not included under Article VI, Section 25 (5).

Held:
No, the transfer of funds are unconstitutional and invalid.

Sec. 25(5), Art. VI of the 1987 Constitution, in turn, provides “No law shall
be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, the President,
the President of the Senate, The Speaker of the House of Representatives, the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the heads of Constitutional
Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general
appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of
their respective appropriations.

In this case, it was not the President but the Deputy Executive Secretary
who caused the transfers and the latter was not shown to have been
authorized by the President to do so. Further, transfer of funds under Sec.
25(5), Art. VI of the Constitution may be made only by the persons mentioned
in the section and may not be re-delegated being already a delegated authority.
Additionally, the funds transferred must come only from savings of the office in
other items of its appropriation and must be used for other items in the
appropriation of the same office. Hence, there were no savings from which
augmentation can be taken because the releases of funds to the Office of the
President were made at the beginning of the budget year 1992.

Thus, it is clear that the use of the transferred funds was not in accordance
with the purposes laid down by the Special Provisions of R.A. 7180.

The General Provisions of R.A. No. 7180 provides that "[E]xcept by act of
the Congress of the Philippines, no change or modification shall be made in
the expenditure items authorized in this Act and other appropriations laws
unless in cases of augmentations from savings in appropriations as authorized
under Section 25(5) of Article VI of the Constitution."

It is important to underscore the fact that the power to transfer savings


under Sec. 25(5), Art. VI of the 1987 Constitution pertains exclusively to the
President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the heads of
Constitutional Commissions and no other.

In Philippine Constitution Association v. Enriquez, the Court declared that


individual members of Congress may only determine the necessity of the
realignment of savings in the allotments for their operating expenses because
they are in the best position to know whether there are savings available in
some items and whether there are deficiencies in other items of their operating
expenses that need augmentation. However, it is the Senate President and the
Speaker of the House of Representatives who shall approve the realignment.

In the same case, the Court also ruled that the Chief of Staff of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines may not be given authority to transfer funds under
this article because the realignment of savings to augment items in the general
appropriations law for the executive branch must and can be exercised only by
the President pursuant to a specific law.

Parenthetically, petitioners fail to point out to the Court the specific law and
provision thereof which authorizes the transfer of funds in this case.

Thus, the submission that there was a valid transfer of funds within the
Executive Department should be rejected as it overlooks the fact that the
power and authority to transfer in this case was exercised not by the President
but only at the instance of the Deputy Executive Secretary, not the Executive
Secretary himself. Even if the DILG Secretary had corroborated the initiative of
the Deputy Executive Secretary, it does not even appear that the matter was
authorized by the President. More fundamentally, as will be shown later, even
the President himself could not have validly authorized the transfer under the
Constitution.
Petitioners Sarino, Sanchez, Regala, Barata and Agbayani, at the time of the
disallowed transfers, were all responsible officers of the DILG being then the
Department's Secretary, Undersecretary, Chief Accountant, Director, and
Chief of the Management Division, respectively. Their participation, assent and
approval were indispensable to the consummation of the illegal transfer of
funds and render them accountable therefor.

In view of the foregoing, we find no grave abuse of discretion on the part of the
COA in rendering the assailed Decision. The constitutional body should even
be lauded for its commitment in ensuring that public funds are not spent in a
manner not strictly within the intendment of the law.

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