Hyper-presidentialism in Philippine budgeting: toward a political theory of the budget using insight from a post-mortem examination of the disbursement acceleration program (DAP)

The Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was implemented from 2011 to 2013 as a "reform intervention to speed up public spending and boost economic growth." It was, however, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2014. In response, Congress sought to resuscitate the program by redefining the concept of "savings" in the national budget. The dynamics behind the implementation of the DAP, as well as the executive, judicial and legislative actions that followed in its wake, illustrate the tendencies of the Philippine political system to concentrate power in the hands of the President vis-a-vis the other branches of government. This phenomenon is called "hyper-presidentialism." The said phenomenon will be discussed extensively in this study, using the DAP experience as an illustrative case. Proceeding from this, the phenomenon of hyper-presidentialism will be applied in the area of public finance, and examined closely in terms of its implications on budgeting, budget theory and constitutional politics.