Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA), as embedded in recent General Appropriations Acts, represent a grave constitutional distortion of the national budget process and must be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
At its core, the Constitution is clear: only Congress may decide what public funds are spent on and in what amounts. This power of the purse is the Legislature’s most important check on the Executive and a cornerstone of fiscal accountability in our presidential system.
Yet this constitutional design has been increasingly strained—indeed undermined—by the growing reliance on Unprogrammed Appropriations. In 2016, UA amounted to only ₱67.5 billion. By 2023, this ballooned to ₱807.2 billion, followed by ₱724.4 billion in 2024 and ₱363.2 billion in 2025. Often defended as a tool for flexibility, UA in fact raise deeper and more troubling concerns about budget discipline, institutional balance, and fiscal credibility.
Unprogrammed Appropriations violate the Constitution in three fundamental ways.
First, UA unlawfully transfer to the Executive the power to complete the act of appropriation. Instead of Congress specifying the public purpose and the amount of spending, UA leave these essential decisions to be made after the budget is passed within the Executive branch. This is not budget execution; it is budget-making, a power the Constitution reserves exclusively to Congress.
Second, UA undermine the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. By surrendering meaningful control over appropriations, Congress weakens itself as a co-equal branch, while the Executive is allowed to shape national spending priorities without prior legislative approval. The constitutional boundary between authorization and execution collapses.
Third, UA subvert the constitutionally mandated budget framework. They are not backed by assured sources of financing at the time of enactment and function instead as a parallel, contingent budget, operating outside the disciplined and transparent process required by the Constitution. What should require a supplemental appropriation law is instead done administratively and quietly.
The Constitution does not permit convenience, flexibility, or expediency to override its structural safeguards. Efficiency is not a defense to unconstitutionality.
By allowing massive public spending decisions to be made beyond legislative scrutiny, Unprogrammed Appropriations weaken transparency, invite abuse, and erode public trust.
The problem worsened dramatically in the last three budget cycles. A select group of congressional officials—likely with the acquiescence of, or in collusion with senior executive officials—exploited Unprogrammed Appropriations during Bicameral Conference Committee deliberations. Priority programs that had been defunded in the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) were transferred into the UA, creating a massive pool of discretionary funds. These were then diverted to pork-barrel and patronage projects, instantaneously bloating UA to unprecedented levels. (To their credit, leaders of both chambers committed during the 2026 budget deliberations to put an end to this irregular practice.)
For these reasons, the Supreme Court must act decisively—to restore fiscal discipline, transparency, and accountability, and to uphold the integrity of the budget process. At stake is not merely a budgetary device, but the Constitution’s clear command on who controls the nation’s purse—and in whose name public money is spent.
Florencio “Butch” Abad was vice-chair/chair of the House Committee on Appropriation (1995-2004) and Secretary of Budget and Management (2010-2016).
