House sends P1-trillion 2006 budget to Senate

The House of Representatives sent the proposed P1-trillion 2006 budget to the Senate yesterday morning.

Upon orders of Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., secretary general Roberto Nazareno transmitted the appropriations measure just hours after congressmen approved it past 10 p.m. Tuesday night.

"We expect this new budget, when ultimately signed into law by the President, to pump-prime the economy and help defeat poverty in the country, create millions of new jobs, build more classrooms and school buildings, and increase social services for our people," De Venecia said.

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, appropriations committee chairman, said the budget includes increased allocations for infrastructure and education spending.

He said senators should promptly tackle the budget and "wrench it of any juice that may be used to brew a cocktail of people’s initiative-cum-plebiscite."

"And they should quickly approve it to make the reenacted (2005) budget inoperative and its abundant savings beyond the reach of Cha-cha (Charter change)," he said.

Senators, particularly Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and Manuel Villar Jr., Salceda’s counterpart, have expressed suspicion that the House was deliberately delaying approval of the 2006 budget so that President Arroyo could use the reenacted outlay to fund Cha-cha.

The House took nearly nine months to deliberate on this year’s spending program submitted by Mrs. Arroyo, which it finally approved Tuesday night almost intact.

De Venecia said with the transmittal of the budget to the Senate, he expects the finance committee chaired by Villar to "act rapidly and judiciously on the budget and have it approved sooner than expected."

In a radio interview yesterday, Villar lamented that congressmen, who sat for more than eight months on the President’s budget proposal only to approve it almost intact, now want the Senate to rush its passage.

He said senators would only have about a month to consider the money measure. He would not say if they would approve it within that period.

He added that a bicameral conference to reconcile the Senate and House versions of the budget would also need to be squeezed into the short period. — Jess Diaz