Greco Antonius Beda Belgica vs. Hon.

Paquito Ochoa
Facts: In 2013, nine petitions were filed before the Supreme Court of the Philippines regarding
the constitutionality of the pork barrel system. One of these petitions were filed by former 6 th
district Manila Councilor Greco Antonious Beda Banta Belgica and his group. The case would
be known as the Belgica vs.Executive Secretary Paquito N. Ochoa Jr. case.

Loosely defined, pork barrel is a fund or budget item over which a legislator has discretion over
its allocation and use.3 For the High Court, the PDAF and its previous incarnations were
steeped in a tradition of misuse: a fact that was recognized by the government itself, through the
COA Report and even the reforms introduced by the Executive to bring more rationality in the
use of the fund.

In 2004, several concerned citizens sought the nullification of the PDAF as enacted in the 2004
GAA for being unconstitutional. Unfortunately, for lack of "any pertinent evidentiary support that
illegal misuse of PDAF in the form of kickbacks has become a common exercise of
unscrupulous Members of Congress," the petition was dismissed.

Recently, or in July of the present year, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) began its
probe into allegations that "the government has been defrauded of some P10 Billion over the
past 10 years by a syndicate using funds from the pork barrel of lawmakers and various
government agencies for scores of ghost projects." The investigation was spawned by sworn
affidavits of 6 whistle-blowers who declared that JLN Corporation "JLN" standing for Janet Lim
Napoles had swindled billions of pesos from the public coffers for "ghost projects" using no
fewer than 20 dummy NGOs for an entire decade.

After its investigation, criminal complaints were filed before the Ombudsman charging several
public officers and NGO presidents with Graft and Corruption, Bribery and Malversation.

Spurred in large part by the findings contained in the CoA Report and the Napoles controversy,
several petitions were lodged before the Court similarly seeking that the "Pork Barrel System"
be declared unconstitutional. These cases were consolidated by the Court.

Issues: Whether or not the Pork Barrel System is unconstitutional.

Decision: With a unanimous vote of 14-0-1 abstain, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the
petitioners, saying that the pork barrel system is unconstitutional.

The Court said that this fund broke constitutional bounds as it allowed solons to intervene in the
implementation of the Budget. Also declared unconstitutional were Congressional Insertions,
specific provisions of the Malampaya Fund and the President’s Social Fund (PSF), which
allowed legislators to intervene in the implementation of the Budget.