IN LAW, A roving commission refers to “a wide and sweeping authority that is not canalized within banks that keep it from overflowing.” Put differently, it is an invalid delegation of legislative powers; a delegation of authority running riot.
Roving commissions have deleterious effects on our constitutional order because they violate the system of checks and balances designed by the framers of our constitution. Thus, time and again, the Supreme Court had invalidated many acts of the Legislature that possessed the trappings of “delegation gone riot.”
Of late, four seeming “roving commissions” have preoccupied the minds of political leaders, students of political science, and some keen observers of the socio-political developments in the country’s major opinion corridors.
They are: (1) the Bicameral Conference Committee (BiCam) of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill headed by their respective Chambers’ leaderships together with the chairpersons of the House of Representatives’ (HOR) Appropriations Committee and the Senate’ Finance committee. Sometimes, this is euphemistically referred to as the “Third Chamber”; (2) the “Small Group” of the “BiCam” composed only of both Chambers’ heads and the chairs of the “Appropriations Committee” of the HOR and “Finance Committee” of the Upper House—at times, this is known as the “Fourth Chamber”; (3) the office of the Secretary General of the House in so far as its ministerial duty to transmit Impeachment Complaints to the Office of the Speaker; and (4) the office of the Secretary of the Senate in so far as its non-discretionary duty to advise the Senate leadership of its receipt of the Articles of Impeachment transmitted by the HOR’s Sec-Gen.
[T]ime and again, the Supreme Court had invalidated many acts of the Legislature that possessed the trappings of “delegation gone riot.”
A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE
For this episode, let us present without suggesting that a roving commission attended the BiCam on the 2025 budget.
Note that a BiCam is not created by the 1987 Constitution. Yes, its provenance is not so provided by the Fundamental Law. But its existence is a necessary consequence of the bicameral nature of our legislature. Its main task or sole justification is to iron-out the disagreeing provisions between and among the HOR’s version and the Senate’s version of legislative measures—not supplant, modify, let alone alter, the chamber’s outputs. Their chambers’ approved versions have to be fashioned out into a unified version will be acceptable to both chambers before they are given the final imprimatur of their respective plenum the last gavels before the unified version become what is known as enrolled bill.
The need to harmonize disagreeing provisions is not present in a unicameral Congress.
The current practice of our bicameral Congress is for both chambers to send their chosen representatives to this BiCam for the latter to do the task of harmonizing or ironing out disagreeing provisions.
With particular reference to this year’s General Appropriations Bill (GAB) which is required to “exclusively originate” from the Lower House, there were serious disagreements not only on the items proposed, but also on the amount suggested—or, “left blank to be mysteriously filled in.”
Unfortunately, we can no longer discuss the merits of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) because it has been challenged before the Supreme Court—and it up for deliberation.
A REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
And while the jury is still out, we shall limit our discussion on the interplay of the tripartite separation of powers under our constitutional order: a representative democracy.
Yes, we operate through interdependent—rather than independent, branches of government: the legislative branch upon which legislative power is exercised through the Senate and the HOR —bicameral in structure; the Executive which implements or executes the laws through the President and his Cabinet; and the Judiciary which settles actual legal controversies through the Supreme Court and the lower courts.
But the Great Ordinances of the Constitution “do not divide the fields in black or white; even the more specific of them are found to terminate in a penumbra gradually shading from one extreme to the other.”
The budget law is one specific subject where the interdependence of the Great Ordinances are graphically manifested.
Our budget law undergoes 4 stages: (a) the preparation by the Executive, (b) the authorization by the Legislature, (c) the execution by the Executive; and (d) the oversight or accountability phase by the Legislature and the constitutionally-independent Commission on Audit (COA).
In all this constitutional process of budgeting, some “big rocks” cannot be pushed aside as Congress meanders its way in the legislative pathways, namely: “(1) The Congress may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for the operation of the Government as specified in the budget. The form, content, and manner of preparation of the budget shall be prescribed by law.” (Sec 25, Art VI, 1987 Constitution); and (2) paragraph (3) thereof provides, “The procedure in approving appropriations for the Congress shall strictly follow the procedure for approving appropriations for other departments and agencies;” among others.
But, as said earlier, due to the pendency of the challenge before the High Court, we cannot delve into the merits and/or constitutionality of the 2025 GAA.
DELEGATION OF POWER
We can only lay down some general principles or yardsticks on non-delegation of legislative powers—not only in the area of budgetary matters but on legislative power in general, vis-a-vis the conduct of the “Third Chamber”, the “Small Group” (Fourth Chamber?), and the HOR’s Printing Office (Fifth Chamber?).
Thus, said the High Court in the case of PAL v. CAB and Grand International Airways, Inc., G.R. 119528, March 26, 1997, 337 Phil. 254, [Second Division, Per J. Torres, Jr.], citing the eminent Justice Isagani Cruz:
“To be valid, the delegation itself must be circumscribed by legislative restrictions, not a “roving commission” that will give the delegate unlimited legislative authority. It must not be a delegation “running riot” and “not canalized with banks that keep it from overflowing.” Otherwise, the delegation is in legal effect an abdication of legislative authority, a total surrender by the legislature of its prerogatives in favor of the delegate.”
There we are!
And, by the way, have we seen the powerful Committee on Appropriations of the Camara Baja conduct a public hearing on its own budget proposal duly defended by the HOR’s Accounts Committee? Or, the latter’s counterpart in the Upper House?
Just like the way Congress deliberated on the Judiciary’s, the Ombudsman’s, and other constitutionally-independent bodies’ budget proposals, including the COA’s?
