MANILA, Philippines - House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman has accused the Aquino administration of demeaning Congress' power of the purse with the National Expenditure Program (NEP) it submitted.

Lagman noted the 2011 proposed NEP only laid down P933 billion new appropriations for the year, and did not contain other aspects of the budget like allotments for continuing appropriations, automatic appropriations, tax refunds and internal revenue of local government units.

Lagman stressed that Congress still has powers to review these appropriations as these are premised on assumptions that need to be validated from time to time.

"That's [an] erratic presentation because Congress has the right to review even automatic appropriations because these have presumptions that may not have been followed by the executive [branch], and we all know that Congress doesn't pass irrepealable and unamendable laws," he said.

"Congress retains power to review laws it has passed. We urged the Appropriations Committee to submit a General Appropriations bill that will include all kinds of expenditures so there will be complete transparency. It's obvious they wanted to demean the power of Congress to go over items of expenditures, and that was implied this morning," he added.

Meanwhile, during the budget briefing of the Appropriations Committee of the House, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) gave the Arroyo administration a seal of good housekeeping, saying it was able to grow the economy.

"The general statement of DBCC (Development Budget Coordination Committee) members admitted that the Aquino administration inherited a relatively sound economy from the previous administration. This is a far departure from earlier statements condemning an allegedly lackluster economic performance of previous administration," said Lagman.

"In other words, the previous administration didn't bungle the economy. No less than BSP Governor (Amando) Tetangco made very positive review of the economic performance of previous administration."

House Senior Deputy Minority Leader Danilo Suarez, for his part, said: "There was a business report of 7.6% [GDP] growth in first half of year, maybe that's why the incumbent administration admitted they inherited a sound economy." - Report from RG Cruz, ABS-CBN News