By Roy Pelovello and Fel V. Maragay

CONGRESS yesterday passed a P1.415-trillion budget that includes a massive spending program to stave off recession, officials said.

The budget act, which is expected to be be signed into law soon by President Arroyo, calls for spending P300 billion, with most of that going to public infrastructure, education and social services.

The government hailed the Senate?s action to ratify the budget act, which was earlier approved by the House of Representatives.

?The ratification will help us weather the global financial crisis,? Arroyo spokesman Lorelei Fajardo told reporters.

The government expects economic growth to have dived to seven-year lows in 2008, just a year after posting a 7.2-percent expansion in 2007, the highest in 30 years.

The 2008 growth data will be released on Jan. 29.

The new budget set a P102-billion deficit ceiling and envisions economic growth of between 3.7 and 4.7 percent.

In a statement, House Speaker Prospero Nograles hailed the ratification of the General Appropriations Act as the country?s best shield against the looming effects of the global financial crisis.

House appropriations committee chairman Quirino Rep. Junie Cua said Wednesday that the budget allocated P50.6 billion for projects aimed at perking up the economy.

Under the 2009 budget, the lawmakers also increased the pork barrel they receive, to P9.665 billion, or P3.425 billion more than originally planned.

To provide more funding for government agencies, Congress sliced debt service payments by P35.324 billion.

Senators yesterday described the economic stimulus fund as the most important change in the national budget.

Senator Edgardo Angara, chairman of the finance committee, said the stimulus fund included P17 billion for additional infrastructure projects, P8 billion for education, particularly construction of school buildings and the hiring of more teachers; P6 billion for agriculture, and P1 billion for the environment.

By line agency, the Education Department gets the biggest slice of the budget, at P158.21 billion, followed by Public Works (P129.89 billion) and the Interior and Local Government (P62.937 billion).

The Defense Department is at fourth with P56.483 billion, followed by the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Program (P44.474 billion), which excludes the P3.615 billion allotted to the Agriculture Department.

The Health Department will get P27.876 billion, Transportation, P25 billion, and the judiciary, P12.68 billion, which excludes the P1.325 billion for the Office of the Ombudsman and the P255.278 million for the Commission on Human Rights.

The Foreign Affairs Department will receive P12.598 billion; Finance, P12.587 billion; Environment, P12.391 billion; Social Welfare, P10.623 billion; Agrarian Reform, P7.868 billion; Justice, P7.063 billion; and Labor, P7.011 billion.

Public Works had the biggest increase from the original budget request as lawmakers increased its funding by P9.359 billion to P129.89 billion.

Other departments whose budgets were increased were Transportation, up P3.835 billion; Education, P1.92 billion; state colleges and universities, P1.171 billion; Interior and Local Government, P470 million; Foreign Affairs, P456 million; Health, P455 million; and Congress, P443 million.

The ratified budget contains a special provision specifying that a P10-billion economic stimulus package should be spent for the following programs:

? Financial aid to the Talinong Pinoy program (P500 million)

? Education and skills development training programs for Kabataang Pinoy (P1 billion)

? Training assistance for laid-off workers and financial assistance to small and medium enterprises (P1 billion)

? Construction of classrooms and school buildings (P3 billion)

? Provisions for drugs and medicines, medical and dental supplies and materials, vaccines, reagents and other biological supplies including P100 million for use of Telehealth services (Buddy Works) in far-flung areas (P1 billion)

? Food production (P2.5 billion)

? Bantay Kalikasan and Bantay Dagat programs (P1 billion)

? Recycling of agricultural and forest waste products (P70 million).

In a statement, the Freedom from Debt Coalition welcomed the P35-billion cut in the debt service but also expressed concerns.

?The P35-billion reduction in debt payments is a step in the right direction in freeing our people and their resources from the burden of paying debts, many of which are being challenged as illegitimate,? the group said.

But the group said the debt cuts in the budget were not enough, stressing that unless the specifics of the cuts were made transparent and the the automatic debt-service provision in the laws were amended, this act would be ?illusory.?