First, as already seen, "All appropriation, revenue or tariff bills, bills authorizing increase of the public debt, bills of

local application, and private bills shall originate exclusively in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may
propose or concur with amendments." 3 09

Secondly, "The Congress may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for the operation of the
Government as specified in the budget." 3 10

Thirdly, the Congress may not clutter the general appropriation law with provisions not specifically related to some
particular item of appropriation, and every such provision shall be limited in its operation to the appropriation item
to which it relates. "
3

Fourth, Congress may not adopt a procedure for approving appropriations for itself different from the procedure for
other appropriations.
312

Fifth, special appropriation bills must specify the purpose for which they are intended and must be supported by
funds certified as available by the National Treasurer. If the funds are not actually available, the special
appropriation bill must provide a corresponding revenue proposal. 3 13

Sixth, Congress has limited discretion to authorize transfer of

funds.314

Seventh, "Discretionary funds appropriated for particular officials shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be
supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to such guidelines as may be prescribed by law." This is a new
provision intended to prevent abuse in the use of discretionary funds.

Eighth, Congress cannot cripple the operation of government by its failure or refusal to pass a general appropriations
bill. Section 25(7) provides for automatic re-enactment of the general appropriations law of the preceding fiscal
year. Such "reappropriation" remains in force until the new general appropriations law is approved.

Ninth, Section 29(2) prohibits the expenditure of public money or property for religious purposes. The scope of this
prohibition is discussed under the religion clause of the Bill of Rights.

Finally, the general appropriation law must be based on the budget prepared by the President. This is discussed
315

under Article VII. Aside from the explicit limitations found in Sections 24, 25 and 29, there is also the all important
implicit limitation that public money can be appropriated only for a public purpose. This limitation arises from the
relation between the power to spend and the power to tax. "The right of the legislature to appropriate public funds is
correlative with its right to tax, and, under constitutional provisions against taxation except for public purposes ... no
appropriation of state funds can be made for other than a public purpose." ' 3 6

International agreements involving political issues or changes of national policy and those involving
international arrangements of a permanent character usually take the form of treaties. But
international agreements embodying adjustments of detail carrying out well-established national
policies and traditions and those involving arrangements of a more or less temporary nature usually
take the form of executive agreements.

In the Philippines, the DFA, by virtue of Section 9, Executive Order No. 459,32 is initially given the
power to determine whether an agreement is to be treated as a treaty or as an executive agreement.
To determine the issue of whether DFA Secretary Del Rosario gravely abused his discretion in
making his determination relative to the Madrid Protocol, we review the jurisprudence on the nature
of executive agreements, as well as the subject matters to be covered by executive agreements.