The opposition camp made full use of its latest ammunition against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori -- his decision to keep playing golf Saturday despite learning about a collision between a Japanese vessel and a U.S. submarine -- during Tuesday's House of Representatives Budget Committee deliberations.

Government officials meanwhile claimed Tuesday that Mori continued his game at a Yokohama golf course because his secretary told him to stay on the links.

"The prime minister was told (by his secretary) to stay where he was" so that messages regarding the accident could be swiftly delivered to him, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kosei Ueno told a regular news conference.

The embattled prime minister has come under fire for not giving up his game until two hours after he received the initial reports of the accident at 10:50 a.m. Saturday.

Ueno claimed the first report to the prime minister did not mention that people disappeared in the accident.

The golf outing fueled opposition criticism of Mori's apparent lack of any sense of crisis management during Tuesday's Lower House Budget Committee session.

"The Japanese people are starting to harbor doubts not only about his awareness but about his ability," Banri Kaieda of the Democratic Party of Japan told the committee. "They are wondering if they can really leave this man to handle the nation."

Critical comments were heard even within the ruling camp led by Mori's Liberal Democratic Party.

Takenori Kanzaki, head of LDP coalition partner New Komeito, said Sunday that the prime minister "should have returned to the Prime Minister's Official Residence immediately."

LDP bigwig Hiromu Nonaka also suggested during a party gathering Tuesday that Mori should not have gone to play golf in the first place at a time when the Diet is busy handling the sensitive issue of getting the next fiscal year's budget approved.