2019 budget impasse over? Lawmakers meet in a bid to pass measure

House appropriations panel chair Rolando Andaya Jr. and Senate finance chair Senator Loren Legarda

MANILA, Philippines — Lawmakers are now expected to break the deadlock over the final version of the P3.8-trillion national budget proposal for 2019.

Members of the congressional bicameral conference committee met at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City on Friday to approve the 2019 spending bill despite objections from Senator Panfilo Lacson over alleged pork barrel insertions in the budget.

READ: Lawmakers keep P75-B pork in final spending bill

House appropriations panel chair Rolando Andaya Jr. and Senate finance chair Senator Loren Legarda earlier approved the final draft committee report prepared by the “small group” of the Senate-House conference committee.

Both Legarda and Andaya earlier declared the country would have a new budget by Friday, February 8, and stop operating under the 2018 reenacted financial plan.

READ: Reenacted budget looms over pork

The approval of the budget has been stalled amid allegations of inserted pork barrel cloaked as amendments in the expenditure plan. Lacson earlier said each House member is bound to get P160 million from the budget, while his colleagues also made insertions, including P23 billion infrastructure programs.

“Basically, yes, the P160 million per House member plus the billion-peso insertions made by a number of their colleagues, and the P23-billion Department of Public Works and Highways insertions by a number of senators plus other insertions in different agencies have all been retained,” Lacson said in a previous Inquirer report. /kga

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