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Pimentel v. Executive Secretary

The petitioner challenged the P21B budget allocation for the Conditional Cash Transfer Program (CCTP) implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), claiming it violated the autonomy of Local Government Units (LGUs). However, the Supreme Court ruled that under the Local Government Code, nationally-funded projects are exempt from devolution to LGUs. While LGUs have autonomy over basic services, the national government can still directly implement programs that achieve national development goals in partnership with LGUs. Therefore, the CCTP budget did not encroach on LGU autonomy. The petition was dismissed.

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116 views

Pimentel v. Executive Secretary

The petitioner challenged the P21B budget allocation for the Conditional Cash Transfer Program (CCTP) implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), claiming it violated the autonomy of Local Government Units (LGUs). However, the Supreme Court ruled that under the Local Government Code, nationally-funded projects are exempt from devolution to LGUs. While LGUs have autonomy over basic services, the national government can still directly implement programs that achieve national development goals in partnership with LGUs. Therefore, the CCTP budget did not encroach on LGU autonomy. The petition was dismissed.

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xxxaaxxx
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You are on page 1/ 3

PIMENTEL V.

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
G.R. No. 195770

July 17, 2012

FACTS:
DSWD embarked on a poverty reduction strategy with the poorest of the poor as target beneficiaries,
“Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino” later renamed to “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program” (4Ps). The program
provicdes cash grant to extreme poor households to allow the members of the families to meet certain
human development goals.

Under A.O. No. 16, s. 2008, the DSWD institutionalized a coordinated inter-agency network among the
DepEd, DOH, DILG, NAPC (National Anti-Poverty Commission) and the LGUs, identifying specific roles
and functions to ensure effective and efficient implementation of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program.
DSWD is the lead implementing agency that must “oversee and coordinate the implementation, monitor-
ing and evaluation of the program” with the concerned LGU as partner agency. Congress, for its part,
sought to ensure the success of the CCTP by providing it with funding under the GAA (General Appro-
priations Act) of 2008 in the amount P298,550,000.00. This budget allocation increased tremendously to
P5B in 2009, with the amount doubling to P10B in 2010. The biggest allotment given to the CCTP was in
the GAA of 2011 at P21,194,117,000.00.

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(S):
WON the P21B CCTP budget allocation under the DSWD in the GAA FY 2011 violates Art. II, Sec. 25 &
Art. X, Sec. 3 of the 1987 Constitution in relation to Sec. 17 of the Local Government Code by providing
for the recentralization of the national government in the delivery of basic services already devolved to
the LGUs

RULING:
No.

The Constitution declares it a policy of the State to ensure the autonomy of local governments.

Art. X, Sec. 3. The Congress shall enact a local government code which shall provide for a more
responsive and accountable local government structure instituted through a system of decentral-
ization . . .

Art. X, Sec. 14. The President shall provide for regional development councils or other similar
bodies . . . for purposes of administrative decentralization to strengthen the autonomy of the
units therein and to accelerate the economic and social growth and development of the units in
the region.

In order to fully secure to the LGUs the genuine and meaningful autonomy that would develop them into
self-reliant communities and effective partners in the attainment of national goals, Section 17 of the Lo-
cal Government Code vested upon the LGUs the duties and functions pertaining to the delivery of basic
services and facilities, as follows:

Sec. 17. (a) Local government units shall endeavor to be self-reliant and shall continue exercising
the powers and discharging the duties and functions currently vested upon them. They shall also
discharge the functions and responsibilities of national agencies and o︎ffices devolved to them
pursuant to this Code. Local government units shall likewise exercise such other powers and dis-
charge such other functions and responsibilities as are necessary, appropriate, or incidental to
efficient and effective provision of the basic services and facilities enumerated herein.

(b) Such basic services and facilities include, but are not limited to, . . .

While the aforementioned provision charges the LGUs to take on the functions and responsibilities that
have already been devolved upon them from the national agencies on the aspect of providing for basic
services and facilities in their respective jurisdictions, paragraph (c) of the same provision provides a
categorical exception of cases involving nationally-funded projects, facilities, programs and services,
thus:

(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (b) hereof, public works and infrastructure
projects and other facilities, programs and services funded by the National Government under
the annual General Appropriations Act, other special laws, pertinent executive orders, and those
wholly or partially funded from foreign sources, are not covered under this Section, except in
those cases where the local government unit concerned is duly designated as the implementing
agency for such projects, facilities, programs and services.

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.”

The national government is, thus, not precluded from taking a direct hand in the formulation and imple-
mentation of national development programs especially where it is implemented locally in coordination
with the LGUs concerned.

Petitioners have failed to discharge the burden of proving the invalidity of the provisions under the GAA
of 2011. The allocation of a P21B budget for an intervention program formulated by the national gov-
ernment itself but implemented in partnership with the local government units to achieve the common
national goal development and social progress can by no means be an encroachment upon the autono-
my of local governments.

DISMISSED.

Notes: (some definitions discussed in the case which Atty. might ask)

• Decentralization of administration - It is when the central government delegates administrative pow-


ers 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.’
• Decentralization of power - involves an abdication of political power in favor of local government
units declared to be autonomous. The autonomous government is free to chart its own destiny and
shape its future with minimum intervention from central authorities. It also amounts to 'self- immola-
tion,' since in that event, the autonomous government becomes accountable not to the central authori-
ties but to its constituency.

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