SC denies Senate certiorari petition
Concerned officials from the executive department, including then DoH Secretary Francisco Duque lll, attended the hearings
Daily TribuneConcerned officials from the executive department, including then DoH Secretary Francisco Duque lll, attended the hearings
To maintain the separation of powers between the three departments of the government, the Court cannot exercise a power that belongs to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.
This was stated in an SC en banc decision penned by Associate Justice Amy C. Lazaro-Javier, denying the petition for certiorari and prohibition filed by the Senate of the Philippines challenging the constitutionality of a memorandum issued by then President Rodrigo Duterte.
In 2021, the SBRC started an investigation on the budget utilization of the Department of Health following a report from the Commission on Audit that there was a deficiency of P67,322,186,570.57 in public funds intended for the government's Covid-19 response.
The committee then conducted hearings on the following matters: the DoH's underutilization of its 2020 budget; the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines by local government units; unspent funds, misstatements, irregularities, and deficiencies of the DoH, as found by CoA; and payment claims issues between the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and private hospitals.
Concerned officials from the executive department, including then DoH Secretary Francisco Duque lll, attended the hearings.
But then Pesident Duterte, through Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea, stopped the executive officials from attending the hearings, by issuing a memorandum dated 4 October 2021 directing all officials and employees of the Executive Department to cease attending the SBRC hearings on the government's disbursement of the Covid-19 funds.
The Memorandum also asserted that the SBRC inquiry has turned into a preliminary investigation of sorts meant to identify the persons allegedly liable for irregularities that existing statutes already defined and punish.
It claimed that the SBRC has stepped into the mandates of other branches of government.
Viewing the memorandum as an obstruction to the Senate's constitutional function to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation, Senate Resolution 131 was passed, authorizing the filing of the present petition before the Court.
In denying the Senate's petition, the Court found that it failed to meet the requisites for a petition for certiorari to prosper.
