PHILIPPINES: The Philippine Supreme Court upheld President...

PHILIPPINES: The Philippine Supreme Court upheld President Corazon Aquino’s power to allocate up to 37% of the annual budget for payment of the country’s debt. The court, voting 10-5, also tossed the question of whether the country should honor its international debts back to Congress and the executive branch, saying this is a “political” decision. The court dismissed a petition by two senators seeking to abolish presidential decrees allowing Aquino to set an automatic appropriation of $3.1 billion out of the $8.3-billion total budget for debt service. Aquino has repeatedly rejected calls in the legislature to put a unilateral cap on annual servicing of the country’s $28-billion external debt.