House budget insertions push multipurpose building allocation to P83.7 billion

The allocation for proposed multipurpose buildings across the country ballooned to P83.7 billion after the House of Representatives augmented the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) 2027 budget, with most of the projects lacking publicly available supporting documents, a budget watchdog said Monday.

The figure reportedly exceeds allocations for critical sectors such as health facilities and classroom construction. It is also more than double the P41 billion proposed by the executive in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

Zy-za Nadine Suzara, co-convenor of the People’s Budget Coalition (PBC), said the multipurpose buildings were among the 7,000 infrastructure projects worth P190 billion that House lawmakers inserted into the 2027 budget without publishing supporting documents.

She alleged that of the 6,000 multipurpose hall projects added to the DPWH budget, only 2,000 could be verified using currently available public data.

The coalition raised concerns over the necessity and prioritization of these buildings. While the projects could serve as evacuation centers during typhoons, the lack of public documents makes it difficult for taxpayers to verify whether they are located in disaster-prone areas, it said.

“We called this out because there were no published supporting documents for the 7,000 insertions that are worth P190 billion. This is how the flood control scandal started,” Suzara said in a radio interview.

“Our call for red flags is not an accusation of corruption. These are valid questions about what we call allocative efficiency, how to allocate our very small budget, and where the sector should go. Second, the magnitude of the insertions is really huge,” she added.

Suzara also claimed that budget insertions were concentrated in the DPWH district engineering offices covering the districts of House leaders, including Speaker Bojie Dy (Isabela 6th District), House appropriations committee chair Mikaela Suansing (Nueva Ecija 1st District) and House Majority Leader Sandro Marcos (Ilocos Norte 1st District), among others.

Suzara said several lawmakers had questioned the PBC’s data and figures, calling them inaccurate.

However, she maintained that while discrepancies may exist, lawmakers should provide complete information on budget allocations to civil society groups.

The coalition stressed that while Congress has the power to amend the budget, such changes should not be self-serving or prioritize district-level projects at the expense of urgent public needs, including transportation.

“The budget is a zero-sum game. In order to add and put in 7,000 insertions, it means there are big reductions. And what are the reductions? The foreign-assisted projects. The reduction is P130 billion. These are loan agreements,” Suzara said.

Longstanding practice

Before the House passed its version of the 2027 budget and transmitted it to the Senate, Sen. Ping Lacson’s initial review of the NEP found P180 million in uniform lump-sum allocations for the establishment of evacuation centers across the country.

However, the line items provided no details, including the specific locations of the proposed centers.

The practice of allocating uniform amounts for projects under the scandal-hit DPWH has recurred over the years.

During deliberations on the 2026 budget last year, Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima also flagged substantial funding for multipurpose buildings across different regions and legislative districts, each carrying an identical allocation of P50 million.

The observation came amid the Marcos administration’s supposed budget reforms, which began in 2025 following the flood control projects corruption scandal.

Suzara said the PBC intends to attend the upcoming bicameral conference committee proceedings to observe the final budget process, arguing that the physical presence of reform advocates adds “pressure” on lawmakers.

The PBC said livestreaming the bicameral proceedings alone would not be enough to ensure a corruption-free budget. It cited an instance last year when the proceedings were interrupted for hours, allowing lawmakers to negotiate during executive sessions or breaks.

Suzara said that despite these transparency measures, the 2026 budget still contained “red flags,” including about P1 trillion in budget insertions.

The 2027 budget will be the last full national budget to be implemented during the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. before the 2028 national elections. Critics argue that the proposed budget remains politically centered rather than focused on public needs, citing alleged pork barrel allocations intended to support the early campaigning of administration allies.

‘Pork’ remains

The PBC’s parallel budget review identified nearly P1 trillion in red flags or potential pork barrel allocations: P210 billion in “soft pork,” or patronage-driven ayuda; P695 billion in “hard pork,” or politicized infrastructure; and P112 billion in “shadow pork,” or unprogrammed appropriations.

A Senate review, meanwhile, found that the number of DPWH projects increased from 11,420 in the NEP to 16,244 in the House version of the 2027 budget. Lawmakers allegedly introduced 6,271 of the new projects without initial vetting by the executive branch.

Of the 16,244 projects, Sen. JV Ejercito, chair of the Senate finance committee, said 1,418, or 8.73 percent, had physical and digital documentation, while the rest lacked supporting documents.

House leaders have defended their version of the budget, describing the contested items as “amendments” rather than insertions and attributing potential discrepancies to “typographical errors” in the voluminous documents.

The P190 billion in budget realignments made by the House is not limited to multipurpose buildings. It also includes farm-to-market roads (FMRs) under the Department of Agriculture, with some project coordinates allegedly pointing to locations at sea.

For FMRs alone, the coalition said the House inserted 355 entirely new projects worth nearly P6 billion that were “completely absent” from the NEP and the DA’s budget proposal.

Among the flagged projects was a P23-million FMR supposedly located in Nueva Ecija, but whose coordinates pointed to an area in the ocean near Benham Rise.

Another FMR worth P30 million was allegedly located in the Celebes Sea near Indonesia, although the line item identified Cebu as its intended location.

A P55-million FMR was also purportedly mapped to an area near Brunei instead of its intended location in Quezon.