Pimentel vs Ochoa G.R. No. 195770 (Case Digest)

 Pimentel vs Ochoa

G.R. No. 195770               July 17, 2012

Facts:

            DSWD embarked on a poverty reduction strategy with the poorest of the poor as target beneficiaries.  Dubbed "Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino," it was pre-pilot tested in the municipalities of Sibagat and Esperanza in Agusan del Sur; the municipalities of Lopez Jaena and Bonifacio in Misamis Occidental, the Caraga Region; and the cities of Pasay and Caloocan upon the release of the amount of P50 Million Pesos under a Special Allotment Release Order (SARO).

            DSWD issued A.O. No. 16, s. 2008) setting the implementing guidelines for the project renamed "Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program" (4Ps).  This government intervention scheme, also conveniently referred to as CCTP, "provides cash grant to extreme poor households to allow the members of the families to meet certain human development goals."

            Congress, for its part, sought to ensure the success of the CCTP by providing it with funding under the GAA of 2008 in the amount of Two Hundred Ninety-Eight Million Five Hundred Fifty Thousand Pesos. This budget allocation increased tremendously to P5 Billion Pesos in 2009, with the amount doubling to P10 Billion Pesos in 2010. But the biggest allotment given to the CCTP was in the GAA of 2011 at Twenty One Billion One Hundred Ninety-Four Million One Hundred Seventeen Thousand Pesos.

            Petitioner Aquilino Pimentel, Jr., a former Senator, joined by Sergio Tadeo, incumbent President of the Association of Barangay Captains of Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, and Nelson Alcantara, incumbent Barangay Captain of Barangay Sta. Monica, Quezon City, challenges before the Court the disbursement of public funds and the implementation of the CCTP which are alleged to have encroached into the local autonomy of the LGUs.

 

Issue:

            Whether the 4Ps program is unconstitutional as it encroached the Section 3, Article X of the Constitution.

 

Held:

            No; the essence of this express reservation of power by the national government is that, unless an LGU is particularly designated as the implementing agency, it has no power over a program for which funding has been provided by the national government under the annual general appropriations act, even if the program involves the delivery of basic services within the jurisdiction of the LGU.

            The Court held in Ganzon v. Court of Appeals that while it is through a system of decentralization that the State shall promote a more responsive and accountable local government structure, the concept of local autonomy does not imply the conversion of local government units into "mini-states." We explained that, with local autonomy, the Constitution did nothing more than "to break up the monopoly of the national government over the affairs of the local government" and, thus, did not intend to sever "the relation of partnership and interdependence between the central administration and local government units." In Pimentel v. Aguirre, the Court defined the extent of the local government's autonomy in terms of its partnership with the national government in the pursuit of common national goals, referring to such key concepts as integration and coordination. Thus: under the Philippine concept of local autonomy, the national government has not completely relinquished all its powers over local governments, including autonomous regions. Only administrative powers over local affairs are delegated to political subdivisions. The purpose of the delegation is to make governance more directly responsive and effective at the local levels. In turn, economic, political and social development at the smaller political units are expected to propel social and economic growth and development. But to enable the country to develop as a whole, the programs and policies effected locally must be integrated and coordinated towards a common national goal. Thus, policy-setting for the entire country still lies in the President and Congress.

            Certainly, to yield unreserved power of governance to the local government unit as to preclude any and all involvement by the national government in programs implemented in the local level would be to shift the tide of monopolistic power to the other extreme, which would amount to a decentralization of power explicated in Limbona v. Mangelin as beyond our constitutional concept of autonomy, thus: Now, autonomy is either decentralization of administration or decentralization of power.  There is decentralization of administration when the central government delegates administrative powers to political subdivisions in order to broaden the base of government power and in the process to make local governments ‘more responsive and accountable’ and ‘ensure their fullest development as self-reliant communities and make them more effective partners in the pursuit of national development and social progress.’ At the same time, it relieves the central government of the burden of managing local affairs and enables it to concentrate on national concerns. The President exercises ‘general supervision’ over them, but only to ‘ensure that local affairs are administered according to law.’ He has no control over their acts in the sense that he can substitute their judgments with his own.

            Decentralization of power, on the other hand, involves an abdication of political power in the [sic] favor of local governments [sic] units declared to be autonomous. In that case, the autonomous government is free to chart its own destiny and shape its future with minimum intervention from central authorities. According to a constitutional author, decentralization of power amounts to ‘self-immolation,’ since in that event, the autonomous government becomes accountable not to the central authorities but to its constituency.