Senate vows zero funding toward unverified DPWH line items
The Senate will purge P8.84 billion in unsupported infrastructure projects from the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) proposed 2027 budget, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian announced Tuesday following mounting scrutiny over discretionary allocations and corruption-prone projects.
The announcement came after the DPWH failed to submit the required technical documentation to justify funding for 295 specific projects.
An internal review by Gatchalian’s office revealed that roughly 7,000 DPWH projects, valued at P251 billion, were flagged for potential anomalies, including project duplication, overlapping scope, line-item fragmentation, and questionable lump-sum allocations.
Former DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon was subsequently tasked with reviewing the flagged list and confirmed that 295 projects were either noncompliant or lacked underlying documentation.
“The Senate’s mandate is clear: no corresponding documentation, no funding,” Gatchalian said. “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.”
While Senate Finance Committee Chair JV Ejercito has yet to formally confirm the exact reduction, Senate President Pro Tempore Tito Sotto said the budget cut represents a collective decision by the Senate majority.
During a budget hearing on 25 September, Gatchalian highlighted that more than 62 percent — or 7,107 of the 11,395 total DPWH projects in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) — contained at least one major budgetary red flag.
Discrepancies included missing station numbers and geographical coordinates, unallocated lump sums, overlapping boundaries, and conflicting scopes of work.
Concerns over budget additions grew after the House of Representatives approved its version of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), which the Senate finance panel is reviewing ahead of plenary deliberations scheduled for 23 November.
A review by Senator Ping Lacson’s office showed that total DPWH project line items expanded from 11,420 in the executive NEP to 16,244 in the House-approved bill, after lawmakers introduced 6,271 new projects without prior executive vetting.