By Roy Pelovello and Fel V. Maragay

THE HOUSE of Representatives yesterday ratified the P1.415-trillion budget for 2009, cutting only P300 million from the spending bill.

The ratification came amid protests from opposition lawmakers in both chambers of Congress over the lack of transparency in which the budget was reconciled by the bicameral conference committee.

In the Senate, those protests delayed approval of the budget when Senator Panfilo Lacson complained that Senator Edgardo Angara and Rep. Junie Cua, co-chairmen of the bicameral committee, did not convene a meeting of the joint panel to finalize the budget.

?I dissented because they rejected my proposal for an open discussion of the national budget by the bicameral conference committee,? Lacson said.

The Senate was supposed to ratify the budget at 6 p.m., but after a brief meeting, Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri suspended the session until 10 a.m. today.

But Zubiri played down Lacson?s opposition, saying the Senate could not act until the House approved the budget.

Earlier in the day, Speaker Prospero Nograles said the House and the Senate contingents to the bicameral panel had finally come to terms on the final committee report of the proposed 2009 budget.

?This most important piece of legislation will mobilize the country?s human and material resources and catalyze national productivity and development,? Nograles said.

He credited the close coordination and cooperation between the Senate and the House in pursuing the common goal of crafting a responsive budget formula that would pump-prime the economy without imposing an extra tax burden on the people.

?What is paramount is having a unified approach and direction in implementing development and anti-poverty programs by maximizing the use of available resources,? Nograles said.

House appropriations committee chairman Cua said some P56.1 billion of the budget would be an economic stimulus package to spur economic activity and provide more jobs.

?While there was a reduction of about P300 million, we cut around P50 billion from the debt service and around P6 billion was realigned, and we earmarked this amount as an economic stimulus package,? Cua said in an interview.

He said that while there were some changes in the budget, the Palace?s proposed budget was generally intact, with the largest funding for the Education Department.

He said that while the bicameral panel was earlier looking at 2.0 percent of the country?s gross domestic product, or around P160 billion, in economic stimulus package, they later decided around P50 billion would do.

?We believe P50 billion would be enough to stimulate economic activity without unnecessarily raising interest rates,? Cua said.

He said the cuts in debt service were taken from some questionable debt service and some pre-maturing obligations, which already had planned appropriations but debt payment was not yet actually due.

House Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora said they protested the lack of transparency in the deliberations of the bicameral panel, but they welcomed the decision to cut P35.32 billion in debt service that would be used as an economic stimulus package.

?I am glad that the conference committee has approved a reduction in debt service, but that is not enough,? Zamora said.

?May I suggest to the DBM as it now implements the budget that we start with tainted, unconscionable loans, a recommendation that we made last year, which the committee on appropriation then was prepared to accept.?

Shortly before Congress recessed last Christmas, the bicameral committee authorized Cua, chairman of the House committee on appropriations, and Angara to meet to iron out the differences in their respective versions of the 2009 budget.

But Zamora said that since then, Cua had not reported nor briefed members of the House bicameral panel on the budget.

?I cannot recall any similar occurrence in the past when this has happened. We would not just sign [the bicameral conference report] without having studied what the changes are,? Zamora said.

Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casi?o noted that by the time they ratified the budget last night, he had yet to see a copy of the final bicameral conference committee report.

But he said that with only five members of the minority in the bicameral panel on the budget, they could not demand more time to look into the agreed changes on it.

As of yesterday afternoon, reports said there were already 14 members of the majority in the House bicameral panel who had signed the final committee report: Cua and Representatives Thelma Almario, Jose Yap, Salvador Escudero, Roilo Golez, Edgar Chato, Orlando Fua, Edcel Lagman, Nur Jaafar, Neptali Gonzales, Bienvenido Abante, Milagros Magsaysay, Liwayway Vinzons-Chato, and Rodolfo Plaza.