Councilors question inclusion of national tax allotment in 2026 budget

The Philippine Councilors League (PCL) on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to declare the inclusion of the National Tax Allotment (NTA) for local government units (LGUs) as part of the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA) as unconstitutional. 

In a 32-page petition, the PCL said including the NTA amounting to P1.19 trillion as part of the GAA is illegal, as the NTA is not a national expenditure subject to legislative appropriation but a constitutionally mandated share that must be released to LGUs.

“Treating the NTA as an appropriation negates and violates the declared policy of the State to ensure local autonomy, as it subjects the LGU’s just share to executive veto, constitutional reenactment, and buget execution controls, thereby defeating the mechanical, perfunctory, and unconditional nature of automatic release mandated by the Constitution and the Local Government Code,” the petition said.

The respondents are Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Frederick Go, Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Acting Secretary Rolando Toledo, National Treasurer Sharon Almanza, and Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan.

GMA News Online is reaching out to the above-mentioned officials and will publish their comment once available.

In a message, Recto replied: “It is automatically appropriated.”

In their petition, the PCL asked the SC to declare null and void the respondents’ acts, practices, policies, and mechanisms that treat the NTA as subject to the GAA for having been implemented with grave abuse of discretion.

They also asked the SC to declare that the LGU’s just share in national taxes, including the NTA, does not accrue to the national treasury and therefore must not be received, recorded, held, or treated by the national treasurer as part of the national government funds.

The petitioners urged the SC to annul and set aside all issuances of the respondents that subject the NTA to treatment as an item of appropriation.

“By treating the LGU’s just share in national taxes as subject to appropriations, allotment, or General Appropriations Act-dependent mechanisms, Respondents effectively arrogated unto themselves the power to suspend, condition, or diminish a constitutional mandate expressly intended to operate automatically and without discretion,” the petition read.

“Such acts constitute grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or access of jurisdiction, as Respondents applied inapplicable national budgetary rules to funds that are constitutionally and statutorily excluded from national control,” it added. — With reports from Anna Felicia Bajo/JMA, GMA Integrated News