295 DPWH projects to be removed

MANILA, Philippines — Close to 300 infrastructure projects deemed not compliant with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)’s evaluation would be removed from the P7.2-trillion proposed national budget for next year, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian vowed yesterday.

“The Senate is committed unequivocally to weeding out unsubstantiated line items, including those lacking concrete and verifiable technical support, to ensure that every item in the final version is shovel-ready. Unverifiable line items will not receive a single peso of public funding,” Gatchalian said, referring to 295 public works projects worth P8.836 billion.

“It’s clear in the Senate’s mandate – no relevant documents, no funds. There should be no room for abuse of people’s money, especially during economic slowdown, when every peso is needed to keep the economy moving,” he said.

At a Senate hearing last September, Gatchalian said more than 62 percent or 7,107 of the total 11,395 infrastructure projects reviewed by his office had at least one major budgetary red flag.

Among the red flags are lacking station numbers and geographical coordinates, overlapping or fragmented projects and conflicting types of work.

After vowing to have the original allocation for Foreign-Assisted Projects in the 2027 budget restored, Senate finance committee chairman JV Ejercito vowed not to tinker with the administration’s “legacy projects.”

MR on SC ruling

Meanwhile, Malacañang said the Office of the Solicitor General is expected to file today a motion for reconsideration on the Supreme Court’s recent ruling declaring as unconstitutional the national budgets for 2024 and 2025 as well as some provisions in the 2026 outlay.

“We have spoken to SolGen (Solicitor General Darlene Marie) Berberabe and tomorrow (Nov. 4), they will file a motion for reconsideration,” Palace press officer Claire Castro said at a briefing yesterday.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the 2024 national budget is unconstitutional because of Congress’ raising the unprogrammed appropriations by P449.5 billion. The high court also struck down last year’s national budget as unconstitutional because of the P17.99-billion increase in the special road fund made by the legislature. — Alexis Romero