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Thursday, October 30, 2003
Why pick only on Davide?
By Karen M. Flores
CEBU -- A Cebuano justice of the Court of Appeals who has been appointed as a "friend" of the Supreme Court believes Congress indeed has no oversight powers on the P4-billion Judiciary Development Fund (JDF).
Justice Regalado E. Maambong said in a phone interview that Presidential Decree (PD) 1949, which created the JDF, has no provision stipulating Congress' power over the fund.
An ABS-CBN Manila report also quoted Maambong and former Senate president Jovito Salonga as saying that since the questioned JDF expenditures were approved by the Supreme Court en banc, all the justices and not just Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. ought to be impeached -- if the House is serious about pursuing the matter.
Oversight powers of legislators need to be specified and provided for in laws that create agencies or funds because more often than not, "kinahanglan man sad na ang mga congressmen ug funding to carry out their oversight powers. Ingon ana man na ang Congress (Congress needs funding to carry their oversight powers, That's how Congress is)."
As example, Maambong, formerly a commissioner of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), said Congress' oversight powers on the poll body in the implementation of the general registration and absentee voting were spelled out in Republic Acts 8189 and 9189, respectively.
Section 2 of PD 1949 merely provides, "The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall administer and allocate the fund (JDF) and shall have the sole exclusive power and duty to approve the authorized disbursements and expenditures of the fund in accordance with the guidelines set in this decree and its implementing rules and regulations."
However, Maambong said this does not mean that Congress cannot look into how the JDF was used and the alleged misuse of billions, at least 80 percent of which was supposed to have been allocated for the cost of living allowances of court employees.
As it is doing now, Congress can act on the report of the Commission on Audit (COA) and ask the High Court to answer findings and questions state auditors ask on the disbursements.
Maambong noted, however, that Congress does not need to ask for more documents as the pertinent ones are already attached to the annual audit reports.
Further, he said that other from an impeachment trial, legislators can also ask for an accounting of the JDF when Supreme Court officials appear before Congress during the budget hearings that are held every year.
Congress is the source of the budget and has the "power of the purse" that it can use to hold an agency accountable for its funds.
In his capacity as an expert on the Constitution, having been one of those who drafted it in the 1986 Constitutional Commission, Maambong was named last Tuesday as one of seven amici curiae (friends of the court).
They are to help the High Court discuss whether a provision in the Charter was violated with the filing of a second impeachment complaint against Chief Justice Davide within one of year of the first one.
(October 30, 2003 issue)
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