MANILA, Philippines?Sen. Manuel Roxas II yesterday charged the bicameral congressional committee with increasing the national budget for 2010 by ?as much as P35 billion? with pork barrel insertions in rush meetings last week.
In a text message, Roxas said, ?It?s a bust-the-bank budget, they have no more shame over whatever happens to the fiscal situation of the next administration.?
Roxas, who voted against the approval of the P1.54-trillion budget together with Senators Benigno Aquino III and Panfilo Lacson, had said that the government was already facing a P300-billion deficit and would face another P300-billion shortfall next year.
Responding to Roxas, Albay Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, head of the House panel of the bicameral conference committee, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that reports of pork barrel insertions were ?completely untrue.?
?We have had the same level PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel) from 2008 and 2009 to 2010,? Lagman said. A representative is entitled to P70 million and a senator P200 million in project allocations.
Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez yesterday admitted that there were ?lump sums? inserted in the 2010 budget on top of the P9.6-billion regular pork barrel of the representatives and senators. Some lawmakers, he explained, batted for increased infrastructure funding for the rehabilitation of their districts, particularly those areas devastated by the string of typhoons this year.
At any rate, Suarez said Congress has left it to discretion of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo whether or not to veto the pork barrel allocations.
It?s up to Arroyo
?We?re leaving it to the discretion of the President to retain these items or not. A number of lawmakers have requested additional allocations for rehabilitating damaged infrastructure,? Suarez said in a phone interview.
The President also has control over who or what area will be given priority development funding, including the timing of its release.
Critics say Ms Arroyo has deftly used these powers to punish her critics and reward her allies.
The two chambers of Congress ratified the 2010 General Appropriations Act last week, just before the lawmakers went on their holiday break.
While the P1.54-trillion budget is practically the same as the one which Malacańang submitted in August, the final spending schedule approved in the bicameral conference committee raised the PDAF to P9.666 billion from the P6.94 billion in the original proposal. The budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways was also jacked up by P14 billion.
Senate cuts to the budget of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao were restored, so were about half of the funds slashed from the judiciary.
Approval deferred
Speaker Prospero Nograles earlier announced that the House leadership had agreed to defer approval of the budget because some lawmakers were clamoring to see a printed copy of the House and Senate versions before synchronizing the figures.
It was reported that there was a clamor among representatives for increased pork barrel funds.
But the bicameral committee went ahead with the meeting and rushed the approval of the budget before weekend.
