By Ellson Quismorio After a bloody and seemingly endless Bicameral Conference Committee phase, the House of Representatives ratified during Friday night's session the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019. This paves the way for the signing of the 2019 budget by President Rodrigo Duterte once it is also ratified by the Senate. "I unconditionally and irrevocably submit to ratify the Bicameral Committee report , so moved," House Majority Leader Fredenil Castro said on the floor. Deputy Speaker Mercedes Alvarez carried the motion following a simple voice vote (ayes and nayes). Opposition solon ACT-Teachers Party-List Rep. Antonio Tinio stood to object the motion but was flatly ignored by the Castro and Alvarez. The House Bicam conferees headed by Appropriations Committee Chairman, Camarines Sur 1st district Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., said as early as Thursday that they were ready to approve th Bicam report on the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) and that they were only waiting for their Senate counterparts to concur. The two chambers of Congress--the House and the Senate--were supposed to go on recess Wednesday but had to extend their sessions for two days in order to accommodate the GAB's passage before the election campaign period, which will go on full throttle next week. The Bicam meetings began last January 22 at Manila Polo Club even as the government was forced to run on a reenacted 2018 budget for the time being. Camp Aguinaldo was the site of the final meeting Friday wherein the conferees finally resolved their differences and approved the Bicam report at past 4 p.m. Senator Loren Legarda led the Senate contingent. What became the biggest hindrance to the immediate passage of the GAB or proposed budget was the congressmen and senators' low-key squabbling on their billions worth of supposed insertions to the budget, which some sectors have dubbed "pork barrel." The House and Senate were reported to have made insertions to the 2019 budget worth P51 billion and P190 billion, respectively. In a 2013 decision, the Supreme Court (SC) ruled that pork or lawmakers' discretionary funds were unconstitutional since they involve post-enactment intervention in the national budget. As such, lump sums like pork have to be itemized early in the budget process. 'Most scrutinized' budget In her speech after the ratification, House Speaker and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo described the 2019 budget as the "most scrutinized" budget in the history of the legislature. The 2019 budget was already contentious at the beginning of the House deliberations last year due to its "cash-based" nature, which was aggressively pushed by Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Benjamin Diokno. Cash-Based budget forces agencies to finish projects within a one-year period. Members of the House, which get the first crack at the budget thanks of its power of the purse, found this set-up too restrictive as it could negatively affect long-term programs of the government. This was in contrast to the obligation-based budget that lawmakers were used to working with. In fact, all past budgets have been obligation-based. It should also be noted that 2019 is an election year. The law prohibits the conduct of government projects during such time. "Reni-affirm namin na wala na yung one-year cash-budgeting system na pino-propose ni Secretary Diokno (We re-affirmed that the one-year cash budgeting system being proposed by Secretary Diokno is no more)," Andaya told reporters after Friday's Bicam meeting. Documents reaching the Manila Bulletin/ Tempo showed that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Department of Health (DOH), and Department of National Defense (DND) were the top three agencies that given the biggest budget increase by the Bicam. Added to the budgets of these agencies were P46.3 billion, P17.5 billion, and P3 billion, respectively.