Ousted Escudero seeks DPWH budget cuts

Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero, who was ousted as Senate president Monday afternoon apparently over controversies linking him to alleged pork insertions in the 2025 budget, is now pushing for a P250.8-billion cut in the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) proposed 2026 flood control allocations.

Escudero, tagged for having a major hand in billions of pesos allegedly inserted in the 2025 DPWH budget — including P9.1 billion for his home province of Sorsogon — called the agency’s P881.3-billion budget request “deluged with flood control allocations.”

He said nearly a third of the DPWH’s proposed spending is for flood mitigation, dwarfing outlays for classrooms, roads, and bridges.

“Only P13 billion is allocated for new classrooms, yet the budget for flood control is much larger. It’s even bigger than the funds for new roads and five times more than the allocation for new bridges,” Escudero said Monday, before he was unseated unanimously and replaced by Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto.

Escudero’s credibility on the issue has been questioned following his admission that he received P30 million in campaign funds during the 2022 elections from Lawrence Lubiano, a contractor linked by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to the multibillion-peso flood control controversy.

Lubiano’s firm was among those flagged for cornering DPWH contracts, including those that resulted in substandard or ghost undertakings.

The province of Bulacan of Escudero’s erstwhile majority floorleader, Senator Joel Villanueva, received about 12 billion from alleged DPWH insertions in the 2025 budget.

“Cutting the DPWH budget also reduces the possibility of corruption,” Escudero said in Filipino.

Escudero argued that the country should wait for the rollout of the Asian Development Bank-funded flood control master plan next year before pouring more money into overlapping initiatives.

“It would be more practical and beneficial to cut the funds for flood control for now and pour them into education, health, and food production while waiting for the ADB-funded master plan,” he said.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM), which endorsed the DPWH proposal to the House of Representatives, allocated P108 billion for “asset preservation,” P182.5 billion for “network development,” P52 billion for bridges, P15.4 billion for “local programs,” and P167.8 billion for “convergence and special support.”

Escudero urged the DBM to recast the budget, trimming flood control funds to the “bare minimum” needed to protect areas at risk of severe flooding.

“The development impact of the budget has been clearly diluted by this irrational bias for flood control,” he said.