MANILA, Philippines - Lawmakers want to increase their pork barrel in the 2010 budget, according to House appropriations committee chairman Quirino Rep. Junie Cua.

Under Malacañang's P1.541 trillion proposed budget, the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), or pork barrel, was slashed by P2.725 billion--from P9.666 billion in the 2009 approved budget to P6.940 billion in the 2010 proposed budget.

Cua said there is a “clamor” among lawmakers to “restore individual allotments” to 2009 levels. In the 2009 budget, senators and congressmen were each entitled to P200 million and P70 million of pork barrel respectively.

Restoring their individual allotments means the budget for pork may be higher than P9.6 billion because of a new Supreme Court ruling adding 32 party-list representatives in the House of Representatives.

“Certainly, this is something members would welcome especially now. We have to get the consensus. We decide based on majority. We understand the need, but we still have to balance it with what is appropriated,” Cua told House reporters on Tuesday after the first bicameral meeting between the Senate and the House of Representatives on the 2010 budget.

Lawmakers are basically trying to repeat what they did to the 2009 budget. Malacañang's original proposal for PDAF was only around P6 billion. They increased it after the bicameral conference.

Cua said the pork barrel is important to sustain pump-priming activities of the next government. More importantly, 2009 is also an election year.

Time for insertions

Congress held Tuesday morning its first bicameral conference meeting on the 2010 budget. The bicameral conference committee is where lawmakers insert final amendments to the budget.

“We had an agreement that we will organize a small group to take care of reconciling the disagreeing provisions of the House and the Senate versions. It was also agreed that we will try to finish this before we break. That means within the week we will ratify it,” Cua said.

Cua said it's “highly likely” Congress will ratify the budget before Congress adjourns for the holidays because senators began consultations with them during the break.

“Yes we have been in constant consultation. Even if we have not transmitted the budget to them, they wanted to have lead time. They made consultations and briefing. We don't want a reenacted budget. We feel this is important especially at this stage of our economic development,” Cua added.

Cua said he is also confident that once they transmit the budget to Malacañang, President Arroyo will immediately sign it into law. The President has 30 days to act on the budget.

“We believe because of the urgency of this measure, the president may decide to sign it into law even before the 30th day. Early passage of this measure will allow government to pump prime the economy that will allow the government to sustain the momentum,” Cua said.

ARMM and Judiciary

Other contentious items in the budget are the allocations for the judiciary and the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Malacañang cut the budget of the judiciary from P13.3 billion in 2009 to P13 billion in 2010.

In light of the massacre in Maguindanao, senators also proposed to slash the budget of the ARMM by P1 billion. But Cua said there's a proposal from a congressmen coming from the region to restore it.

“The proposal is actually for good reason,” Cua said.