Senate could weed out thousands of infrastructure projects in budget

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate is poised to purge thousands of infrastructure projects that were inserted into the proposed 2027 national budget if the Department of Public Works and Highways fails to submit complete supporting documents by Nov. 3.

Senate finance committee chairman JV Ejercito has secured the commitment to weed out the incomplete projects during a meeting Friday with newly appointed DPWH Secretary Giovanni Lopez and his predecessor, Vince Dizon.

A Senate review revealed that the number of DPWH infrastructure projects ballooned from 11,420 in the executive branch’s original National Expenditure Program to 16,244 in the House-transmitted General Appropriations Bill.

It noted that a total of 6,271 new projects were introduced by lawmakers without the initial executive vetting.

Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian backed the ultimatum, saying they are ready to publish the data to prevent backroom anomalies.

“The Senate committee on finance will remove from the General Appropriations Bill all projects lacking supporting documents, such as feasibility studies, programs of work, resolutions from the LGUs and other required documents,” Gatchalian said.

“We will continue the transparency reforms by uploading all relevant information to the Senate Transparency Portal,” he added.

Ejercito formally notified the DPWH that any project lacking requirements like certificates of implementability, programs of works and geotagged photographs will be stripped from the budget before the start of plenary debates.

“We need to boost our infrastructure spending, but not at the expense of the reforms we want to be instituted,” Ejercito said.

“Every delayed project has an economic cost. And every anomalous, poorly vetted project costs us even more: it wastes taxpayers’ money, deprives endangered communities of safety and erodes public trust,” he added.

During budget briefings in September, Ejercito flagged 155 flood control projects worth P8.2 billion for lack of documentation.

To prevent future budget cycles from bogging down due to unvetted insertions, Ejercito is pushing to institutionalize these strict evaluation standards through Senate Bill No. 2 or the Masterplan for Infrastructure and National Development (MIND) Act, which seeks to establish a long-term, administration-proof infrastructure blueprint.