FOR: Prof.

Ryan Hartzell Balisacan

FROM: Jenny Mary C. Dagun
RE: Validity of the House of Representatives’ Allocation of 1,000-
Peso Budget to the Commission on Human Rights
DATE: November 30, 2018

REPLY
This reply memorandum seeks to rebut the arguments propounded
against the validity of the 1,000-peso budget allocated by the House of
Representatives to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

The Commission on Human Rights

enjoys limited fiscal autonomy

The memorandum made an exhaustive explanation of the fiscal

autonomy that was accorded by the 1987 Constitution to the
Commission on Human Rights. Indeed, this autonomy is different from
the one exercised by the Judiciary, Office of the Ombudsman and the
Constitutional Commissions. Instead, what was provided for by the
Constitution is for the “approved annual appropriations of the
Commission” to be “automatically and regularly released.1 Compared to
the fiscal autonomy provisions for the Judiciary, the Office of the
Ombudsman, and the Constitutional Commissions where, aside from the
automatic and regular release of approved annual appropriations for the
said offices are mandated, it is also stated that they have fiscal
autonomy.
As the memorandum had said, the maxim expression unius est
exclusion alterius was applied by the Court, looking at the deliberations
where the Constitutional Commission had intended to exclude the CHR
from the offices to be granted fiscal autonomy.
The distinction is important because fiscal autonomy means
freedom from outside control. “Fiscal autonomy… contemplates a
guarantee on full flexibility to allocate and utilize their resources with the
wisdom and dispatch that their needs require.“2 In Bengzon v. Drilon,3
1 CONST. art. XIII, §17(4).
2
Bengzon v. Drilon, G.R. No. 103524, April 15, 1992.
3 Id.
the Court recognized that the Judiciary, the Constitutional Commissions
and the Ombudsman must be accorded this kind of independent to
discharge their constitutional duties, without mention of CHR, a
constitutional office.
On the contrary, in Commission on Human Rights Employees
Association (CHREA) v. Commission on Human Rights,4the Court
explained that CHR enjoys “fiscal autonomy only to the extent that its
approved annual appropriations shall be automatically and regularly
released, but nothing more.”

Salary not impaired

The argument that the allocation of 1,000-peso budget to the CHR

is invalid as it would affect the salaries of its Chair and Members, in
contravention to the non-diminution of salary provision of the
Administrative Code of 1987 pertaining to the CHR is erroneous.

The compensation for public officers must comply with the Salary
Standardization Law and it is provided that the funding source for the
same is to be charged against appropriations set aside for the purpose
in the General Appropriations Act and not in the budget allocated for the
CHR per se. As such, even with a 1,000-peso budget, the Chair and
Members of the CHR will be accorded proper compensation.

Conclusion

The CHR does not enjoy the same kind of fiscal autonomy enjoyed
by the Judiciary, Constitutional Commissions and the Ombudsman. As
such, the Congress has the power to reduce the annual budget of CHR
to Php1,000.

4 G.R. No. 155336, July 21, 2006.