By Perfecto T. Raymundo, Jr.
PASIG CITY — The Teachers Dignity Coalition (TDC) is set to question before the Supreme Court (SC) the constitutionality of the P6.326-Trillion National Budget for 2025.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. signed into law the P6.326-Trillion General Appropriatioins Act of 2025 on Dec. 30, 2024.
However, Marcos vetoed the P194-Billion which the powerful Bicameral Conference Committee realigned on unprogranned projects.
In an interview by the PaMaMariSan-Rizal Press Corps on Wednesday (Jan. 8), Benjo Basas, TDC Spokesperson, said that they would like the SC to define the real meaning of basic education, which is supposed to be the priority of the government as enshrined in the 1987 Constitution.
Basas added that the Department of Education (DepEd) has always been getting the highest appropriations in the National Expenditures Program (NEP) or the President’s Budget every year.
Basas expounded that it would appear that military training and police training have been included in the administration’s priority.
He expressed the belief that they have the chance to get the favorable ruling from the highest court of the land, noting that there is an SC jurisprudence on the constitutionality of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), which the SC defined those items that are constitutional and those that are not constitutional.
The TDC executive stressed that they have a period of 60 days from Dec. 30, 2024 within which to question the constitutionality of the P6.326-Trillion with the SC by way of a petition for certiorari.
