The Philippine Online Chronicles

Minority group member Senator Joker Arroyo criticized the House version of the P1.645-trillion 2011 General Appropriations bill Wednesday calling it a "carbon copy" of the allocations prepared by Malacañang.

Arroyo claims that the House version transmitted to the Senate on Tuesday is “too close” to the National Expenditure Program of the previous administration contrary to promises by the Aquino administration to cut back pork barrel and other items they rallied against as part of the opposition.

“The budget as passed by the House is in effect a carbon copy of the budget that Malacañang submitted. There are only a few minor changes but the predominant features of the budget are like what GMA [Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] had done in the past like the lump sum appropriations and conditional cash transfers (CCT),” he said.

What Sen. Arroyo called the "executive’s pork barrel" has also been retained in the budget with looser restrictions set in place. The House also doubled the amount of CCT or dole-outs to P21 billion.

"They (House) ratified the wrong things that should have been eliminated," Arroyo said.

He added that the Senate is now hard-pressed to redeem the administration and “correct the oversight at the House.”

It is also an acid test of how far it will go to support the president, Arroyo said.

Meanwhile Senate President Franklin Drilon said Tuesday he expects protracted debates on the CCT program to be implemented by the Department on Social Welfare and Development after the House version was passed doubling the budget for the program and extending the program’s reach to 2.3 million families.

"What would be more difficult is that the Senate version might be very different from the House version," said Arroyo.

"The bicameral conference will have one hell of a time figuring that out," he added.

The bicameral conference committee will convene on December 6 to reconcile both versions of the bill reports, abs-cbnnews.com posted.