Anti-graft and clean elections advocates are asking the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the controversial Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program which has been seen as a “vote buying” scheme to back candidates of the Marcos administration.

1Sambayan Coalition, Sanlakas, Advocates for National Interest and other individuals filed a petition for restraining order and the issuance of a write of preliminary injunction enjoining the respondents to stop implementing AKAP other provisions of the General Appropriations Act of 2025 that are either unconstitutional or unlawful.

Named respondents in the petition filed on Friday (March 28) were the Senate of the Philippines; the House of Representatives; the Office of the Executive Secretary; the Department of Budget and Management; the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Works and Highways.

The petitioners decried the program as a form of pork barrel scheme that had been previously declared unlawful and unconstitutional by the High Court.

They insisted that AKAP contains “badges of a congressional pork barrel”.

They pointed out a previous court ruling that defined pork barrel as a “lump-sum discretionary fund” that allows members of Congress to control certain aspects of implementation of purely executive functions.

“Respondents try to play down such participation by claiming that the endorsement or referrals of individual beneficiaries may still be overruled by officers of the Executive branch on the basis of certain parameters,” the petition stated.

“However, it is clear from Belgica that the participation of lawmakers being “merely recommendatory” does not alter its unconstitutional tenor,” they insisted.

The political opposition have assailed AKAP as a program designed as a “vote-buying” scheme that administration candidates, especially lawmakers, use to support their campaign.

Individual petitioners include former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales; economics associate professor Cielo Magno; lawyer Dante Gatmaytan and Dr. Ma. Dominga Cecilia Padilla.