The recent challenge to the validity of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) before the Supreme Court stands on solid ground, as several legal experts have given their full backing to it, expecting the tribunal to shed light on the mysteries of the budgetary process.

Former Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, for one, sees serious flaws in the fund allocations, for which the Bicameral Conference Committee (Bicam) was responsible.

The Bicam, composed of senators and members of the House of Representatives, has acquired tremendous power over the yearly budget and is the primary culprit behind most pork barrel insertions.

The zero allocation for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) violates both the sin tax law and the Constitution, according to Carpio.

The Charter requires health to be given priority in the budget, but the bicam removed the P74.43 billion subsidy to the health insurance agency.

Senate finance panel chairperson Senator Grace Poe said the bicam deleted the subsidy because it would be best for PhilHealth to tap into its reserve funds.

“They need to use their reserve funds first because, as you can see, many people are already upset about not receiving proper reimbursements, and the processing time is too slow. If they have that much money available, they should use it instead of letting it go to waste. What are they doing? Why are they just holding onto it instead of using it?” Poe argued in explaining the subsidy’s removal.

Carpio said the bicam overstepped its authority since, under the sin tax law, “P72 billion plus must go directly and automatically to PhilHealth, but Congress required it to pass through the General Appropriations Act (GAA).”

Carpio further noted that Congress, in the 2025 budget, withheld the automatic appropriation to PhilHealth by removing the subsidy from the proceeds of excise taxes on liquor and cigarettes.

“Congress did not follow the law that it created. They enacted the sin tax law, which required that about 85 percent of collections should go to PhilHealth.”

The law was violated, and instead, the subsidy was reallocated to the Department of Public Works and Highways, mostly for flood control projects.

A review of the 2025 GAA reveals that each congressional district has a budget for flood control, a primary source of pork barrel funds.

Another question Carpio raised was the presence of blank items in the budget.

Two documents are involved in the controversy: the enrolled budget bill signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the Bicameral report, which is considered an internal document of Congress.

“The Bicam report was filled out by the technical staff, raising questions about their authority to do so.”

House appropriations chairperson Stella Quimbo insisted that the blanks were clerical errors and that the figures to be placed in them had already been decided.

The staff’s authority is merely to correct clerical errors, and there is an established Supreme Court doctrine stating that if mistakes are found in the enrolled bill, the majority of Congress must approve the revisions.

“The defects in the bicam report are a shortcoming of the House and the Senate. Legislators should answer for this. Why should billions of pesos be left to the discretion of their staff?” Carpio said.

“What kind of work was that? Congress must explain what happened in the Bicam report.”

Instead of explaining, however, Quimbo is throwing the Bicam technical staff into the lion’s den as sacrificial lambs to save the collective hides of the scheming Bicam members.

The Supreme Court case brings hope that someone in the abusive Bicam will finally spend time in jail.