The Role of Judicial Review in the Anti-Corruption Agenda in the Philippines: The Case of the Pork Barrel System.
By Karen Rodrigo
Human Rights
Global Political Studies – One Year Master
15 credits
Spring Semester/2014
Supervisor: Mikael Spång
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CONCLUSION
Although judicial review is assailed for being counter-majoritarian, hence, antidemocratic, the case study revealed that it is an effective constitutional rights mechanism in situations where the political branches of the government are unavailable to effect social change or to advance a societal interest.
Political corruption through by the Pork Barrel System was made possible by the laws that provided individual politicians - legislators and the President – pork barrel funds and authority to perform post-enactment roles in the government budgeting endeavor.
The Philippine Constitution specifically mandates Congress to enact the annual General Appropriations Act, the idea of which is to itemize government expenditure including its amount and fund source in order to ensure transparency and accountability in the use of the public treasury.
However, these objectives are defeated because pork barrel funds are in lump sum and politicians have unbridled discretion in determining the amount, and the projects, programs, and beneficiaries of their pork funds.
Instead of accountability, the system promotes impunity for corrupt officials in breach of the principle that public office is a public trust.
While pork barrel has a noble purpose – to fund priority (i.e. immediate) development programs – the system has been misused and abused by politicians as exposed in the pork barrel scam.
It was reported that the Filipino people was defrauded of billions of pesos in the course of the scam as ghost projects and bogus NGOs were identified by politicians as beneficiaries of their pork funds to gain kickbacks.
Public money, which is supposed to be spent for public use and purposes, is put to waste benefitting greedy politicians and their co-conspirators. Corruption and human rights are inseparable concepts.
Particularly, political corruption impedes human rights realization and fulfillment since it is done through the manipulation of policies and government institutions.
The people's representatives in the government are the very perpetrators, making it difficult for the people to enforce their rights through ordinary political processes like election and lobbying.
While social movements like the Million People March were resorted to in anti-corruption agenda of eliminating the Pork Barrel System, it also proved to have limited reach.
Meanwhile, through the petition for judicial review, the third branch of the government was able to scrutinize specific laws and acts of the two other branches. In the case study, the Philippine Supreme Court made an affirmative ruling over the petition and rendered an 45 authoritative and legally binding declaration abolishing the Pork Barrel System.
The decision is anchored on the assessment that the assailed laws are contrary to the constitutional precepts of separation of powers, non-delegability of legislative power, checks and balances, accountability, and autonomy of local governments.
The Supreme Court decision not only abolished the Pork Barrel System, it also ensures that no similar law or practice can be made or done without the label of unconstitutionality.
The Philippine experience contributes to our understanding of judicial review and its potential role as change agent and rights enforcement mechanism.
From a human rights perspective, therefore, judicial review must be strengthened as an institution as it can be a possible and adequate mechanism to protect constitutional and human rights when the similar predicament of unavailable resort to political branches is encountered.
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See - https://dspace.mah.se/bitstream/handle/2043/17709/The%20Role%20of%20Judicial%20Review%20in%20the%20Anti-Corruption%20Agenda%20in%20the%20Philippines.pdf?sequence=2
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