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Evelyn Macairan - The Philippine Star
February 24, 2025 | 12:00am
This photo shows the logo of the Office of the Solicitor General.
STAR / File
MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has asked the Supreme Court for a five-day extension to comment on the petition challenging the validity of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
Last Feb. 21, Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra submitted to the SC a four-page motion for extension of time to file comment.
The OSG is representing the respondents House of Representatives represented by Speaker Martin Romualdez; the Senate represented by Senate President Francis Escudero and Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin in the petition for certiorari and prohibition filed by Victor Rodriguez, Isidro Ungab and five others.
Guevarra explained that while the High Court required the respondents to file their comment within 10 days from the time they received the notice, they are still in the middle of revisions.
The respondents received the resolution on Feb. 12, thus the 10-day period lapsed on Feb. 22.
“It respectfully begs the kind indulgence of this Honorable Court for an additional period of five days from Feb. 22, 2025, or until Feb. 27, 2025, within which to file the comment,” Guevarra said.
He clarified that it is not the intention of the OSG to delay the proceedings.
On the other hand, the SolGen said they would be able to submit the original copies of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) and General Appropriations (GA) enrolled bill today.
An enrolled bill is considered the final copy of the bill, which will then be printed and certified as correct by the secretaries general of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It will then be signed by the Speaker and the Senate President.
Earlier, the High Court set the case for a preliminary conference on Feb. 28 at the SC Session Hall in Manila.
The oral arguments on the petition have been scheduled on April 1 at the SC Session Hall in Baguio City.
In their petition, Rodriguez and Ungab argued that the 2025 GAA is unconstitutional for failing to allocate mandatory funding for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), unlawfully increasing appropriations beyond the President’s recommendations and allocating the highest budget to infrastructure over education.
The petitioners alleged that the 2025 GAA violated Article XIV, Section 5 (5) of the Constitution as the budget appropriations to the education sector were merely bloated to give the impression of a “superficial adherence to the constitutional mandate” to assign the highest budgetary priority to education.
The petitioners also cited alleged irregularities and supposed blank items in the bicameral conference committee report.
