The Never Ending Democratization of the Philippines 99 This questionable provision of the Decree has been a bone of contention between Congress and Malacañang. At the start of the Aquino revolutionary government in 1986, the President decided to honor the foreign debts incurred by Marcos. The automatic appropriation provided for in the decree was adopted. The alternative policy of trying to negotiate for a condonation of the debts with foreign governments, international nancial institutions and multinational banks was shelved. Hence, the budget process established during martial law persisted, and reinforced the authoritarian mindset of the executive and legislators as regards public nance. This practice may now be closely reviewed by Congress in view of the Supreme Court rulings in Araullo, et. al vs. Aquino III, et. al. and Belgica, et. al. vs. Ochoa, et.al. These rulings are expected to democratize public nance. The democratization of public nance could be aided by the revision of Republic Act 7640—An Act Constituting the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC). The Council should be strengthened in terms of more meaningful interaction between the executive and legislative branches by way of providing all members of the House of Representatives and the Senate quarterly expenditure programs of the different departments under the President. This could be accomplished through the creation of a subcommittee on budget (Rule VII, Implementing Rules and Regulations of RA 7640). The minority in Congress should be represented in this subcommittee. The subcommittee should have access to all information about budget preparation and particularly execution. This should make the members of the minority up to date about the budget priorities, releases, lineitem veto, realignments, and savings and hence, could better perform its oversight function. A senior leader of the 16th Congress sees the importance of achieving transparency through access to information about budget execution. Some leaders of Congress recently led a bill requiring the Department of Budget and Management to report to the House Committee on Appropriations its execution of the General Appropriations Act. They also led the Freedom of Information bill. If adopted these measures could provide access to information and prevent the diversion of scarce funds for unintended purposes like the case of the Fertilizer Scam and the pork barrel scandals. This would also enable Congress to monitor the personnel services of all departments and prevent “conversions” practiced in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. But President Aquino did not certify the bills as urgent and these are still pending in Congress. Finally, the Judicial Executive Legislative Advisory and Consultative Council (JELACC) should also be strengthened. This council was formed through a Memorandum of Agreement on May 13, 2008. The need for this council was rst proposed in 2007 by Senator Francis Pangilinan in order to address the problem of summary executions and disappearances of political activists. But what was established in 2008 was an advisory and consultative council which aims to “institutionalize consultation, cooperation, and coordination in pursuit of the rule of law and advancement of our nation”