Ten days was given by the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday, 4 Feb. to both the executive and the legislative branches of government to comment on the petition challenging the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 12116, the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

Those required to submit their comments from receipt of the SC’s resolution were the House of Representatives represented by Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Senate of the Philippines represented by Senate President Francis Escudero, and Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin.

The SC in requiring comment, during its full court session acted on the taxpayers’ petition filed by former executive secretary Victor Rodriguez, Rep. Isidro Ungab, Rogelio Mendoza, Benito Ching Jr., Redemberto Villanueva, Roseller Dela Pena, Santos Catubay and Dominic C.M. Solis.

Petitioners told the SC that RA 12116 violated the constitutional provisions under Article II, Section 15; Article VI, Section 25(1); and Article XIV, Section 5(5).

It also argued that RA 12116 is unconstitutional for violating Article II, Section 15 of the Constitution in relation to Sections 10, 11, and 37 of the Universal Health Care Act (UHCA) under RA 11223.

The petition also said the 2025 GAA violated Article VI, Section 25(1) of the Constitution when the respondents aligned the proposed appropriations under the 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP), which resulted in an increase on the proposed budget appropriations for Congress and other line agencies.

Likewise, they said the 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 GAA violated Article VI, Section 27 of the Constitution when the Bicameral Conference Committee submitted a report with blank items on the GAA Bill.

The petitioners averred the Bicameral Conference Committee committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess jurisdiction when it signed the committee report on the 2025 National Budget filled with blanks.

The high bench was also told the UHCA provides that the national government subsidizes the premium contributions of indirect contributors who cannot pay premiums, or are unemployed, not self-earning, non-professions, and non-lifetime members.

They also pointed out that based on the 2025 GAA not a single centavo was allotted to PhilHealth due to its supposed P600 billion reserve funds representing surplus and funds invested.

The petitioners stressed that the surplus and investment funds of PhilHealth are mandated to be used to increase the program’s benefits and to decrease the amount of members’ contributions under Section 11 of UHCA.

It claimed that instead of allocating the excess funds to decrease the amount of members’ contributions and to increase the program’s benefits in accordance with Section 11 of the UHCA which would have alleviated the latter’s burden of paying premiums after premiums to PhilHealth, said excess funds would not be utilized for the operational budget of the PhilHealth thereby deviating from the law’s goals.

They also claimed that PhilHealth will be in no position to provide enhanced health benefits under the UHCA’s mandate and thus, would be violative of the constitutional right to health of all Filipinos, who are members of PhilHealth.