CASE: ARAULLO VS AQUINO AUTHOR:

GR NO: 209287 DATE: July 1, 2014 NOTES: Guys, ang haba ng case nato. 71 pages Ung ratio
TOPIC: JUDICIAL SUPREMACY and doctrine nalang basahin nio ng mabuti.
PONENTE: BERSAMIN, J.

FACTS: On September 25, 2013, Sen. Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada delivered a privilege speech in the Senate of
the Philippines to reveal that some Senators, including himself, had been allotted an additional P50 Million
each as "incentive" for voting in favor of the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato C. Corona.

Responding to Sen. Estradas revelation, Secretary Florencio Abad of the DBM issued a public statement
entitled Abad: Releases to Senators Part of Spending Acceleration Program, explaining that the funds
released to the Senators had been part of the DAP, a program designed by the DBM to ramp up spending to
accelerate economic expansion.

The DBM soon came out to claim in its website that the DAP releases had been sourced from savings
generated by the Government, and from unprogrammed funds; and that the savings had been derived from
(1) the pooling of unreleased and (2) the withdrawal of unobligated allotments also for slow-moving
programs and projects that had been earlier released to the agencies of the National Government.

The petitioners brought to the Courts attention NBC No. 541 (Adoption of Operational Efficiency Measure
Withdrawal of Agencies Unobligated Allotments as of June 30, 2012), alleging that NBC No. 541, which
was issued to implement the DAP, directed the withdrawal of unobligated allotments as of June 30, 2012 of
government agencies and offices with low levels of obligations, both for continuing and current allotments.

ISSUE(S): Whether or not certiorari, prohibition, and mandamus are proper remedies to assail the
constitutionality and validity of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), National Budget Circular
(NBC) No. 541, and all other executive issuances allegedly implementing the DAP.

Subsumed in this issue are whether there is a controversy ripe for judicial determination, and the
standing of petitioners.

HELD: Yes. The petitions under Rule 65 are proper remedies. All the petitions are filed under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court,
and include applications for the issuance of writs of preliminary prohibitory injunction or temporary restraining orders.

The respondents arguments and submissions on the procedural issue are bereft of merit.

DISPOSITIVE PORTION: WHEREFORE, the Court PARTIALLY GRANTS the petitions for certiorari and prohibition;
and DECLARES the following acts and practices under the Disbursement Acceleration Program, National Budget
Circular No. 541 and related executive issuances UNCONSTITUTIONAL for being in violation of Section 25(5),
Article VI of the 1987 Constitution and the doctrine of separation of powers, namely:

(a) The withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies, and the declaration of the
withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year
and without complying with the statutory definition of savings contained in the General Appropriations Acts;

(b) The cross-border transfers of the savings of the Executive to augment the appropriations of other offices
outside the Executive; and
 (c) The funding of projects, activities and programs that were not covered by any appropriation in the General
Appropriations Act.

The Court further DECLARES VOID the use of unprogrammed funds despite the absence of a certification by the
National Treasurer that the revenue collections exceeded the revenue targets for non-compliance with the conditions
provided in the relevant General Appropriations Acts.

RATIO: The Constitution states that judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice not only "to settle actual
controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable" but also "to determine whether or not
there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or
instrumentality of the Government." It has thereby expanded the concept of judicial power, which up to then was
confined to its traditional ambit of settling actual controversies involving rights that were legally demandable and
enforceable.

The background and rationale of the expansion of judicial power under the 1987 Constitution were laid out during the
deliberations of the 1986 Constitutional Commission by Commissioner Roberto R. Concepcion (a former Chief
Justice of the Philippines) in his sponsorship of the proposed provisions on the Judiciary, where he said:

The Supreme Court, like all other courts, has one main function: to settle actual controversies involving conflicts of
rights which are demandable and enforceable. There are rights which are guaranteed by law but cannot be enforced
by a judicial party. In a decided case, a husband complained that his wife was unwilling to perform her duties as a
wife. The Court said: "We can tell your wife what her duties as such are and that she is bound to comply with them,
but we cannot force her physically to discharge her main marital duty to her husband. There are some rights
guaranteed by law, but they are so personal that to enforce them by actual compulsion would be highly derogatory to
human dignity." This is why the first part of the second paragraph of Section 1 provides that: Judicial power includes
the duty of courts to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable or enforceable

CASE LAW/ DOCTRINE: Judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving
rights which are legally demandable and enforceable, and to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse
of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the
Government.

Thus, the Constitution vests judicial power in the Court and in such lower courts as may be established by law. In
creating a lower court, Congress concomitantly determines the jurisdiction of that court, and that court, upon its
creation, becomes by operation of the Constitution one of the repositories of judicial power.25 However, only the Court
is a constitutionally created court, the rest being created by Congress in its exercise of the legislative power.

DISSENTING/CONCURRING OPINION(S):