This Note investigates the additional unprogrammed appropriations in the F.Y. 2022 to 2024 General Appropriations Acts (“GAAs”), which exceeded the total budget recommended by the President. To help cut through the complexities of the appropriations power, and more than conducting a doctrinal analysis, it locates a guiding principle that would help us understand how the Philippine fiscal system is meant to work.
Drawing from existing literature, this Note characterizes the 1987 Constitution as an Accountability Constitution and offers an interpretation of the budget ceiling which is aligned with its power-checking role. It also reflects on recent trends in the national budget and invites readers to see how some seemingly harmless and well-hidden changes in the GAA contribute to the erosion not just of fiscal transparency, but of constitutional accountability as a whole.