GUINGONA V.

CARAGUE
GR 94571, 196 SCRA 221 [APR 22, 1991]

FACTS.

Petitioners assail the constitutionality of the automatic appropriation for foreign debt
service in the 1990 budget. Petitioners contend that the 3 presidential decrees authorizing such
automatic appropriation violate Sec 29 (1), Art VI of the Constitution. It is asserted, among others,
that it did not meet the alleged required definiteness, certainty, and exactness in appropriation, and
so it is an undue delegation of legislative power as the President, by virtue of which, determines in
advance the amount appropriated for the debt service.

ISSUE.

Whether or not the automatic appropriation for debt service in the 1990 budget violative of
Art VI, Sec 29 (1) of the Constitution

HELD.

No. The automatic appropriation for debt service in the 1990 budget is not violative of Art
VI, Sec 29 (1) of the Constitution.

Our Constitution does not require a definite, certain, exact or “specific appropriation made
by law” unlike the Nebraska Constitution invoked by petitioners. Our Constitution simply states that
moneys paid out of the treasury must be made pursuant to an appropriation made by law. More
significantly, our Constitution does not prescribe any particular form of words or religious recitals in
which an authorization or appropriation by Congress shall be made, except that it be “made by law”
such as precisely the authorization under the questioned presidential decrees. In other words xxx
an appropriation may be made impliedly (as by past but subsisting legislations) as well as
expressly for the current fiscal year (as by enactment of laws by the present Congress). The
Congressional authorization may be embodied in annual laws, such as a general appropriations
act or in special provisions of laws of general or special application which appropriate public funds
for specific public purposes, such as the questioned decrees.