Congress hikes DPWH budget by P11 B

Lawmakers have increased the 2018 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) instead of taking out pork barrel funds as proposed by Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

The final report on the proposed P3.8-trillion national budget for next year that the Senate and the House of Representatives approved on Tuesday shows that the DPWH received an additional P11.1 billion, bringing its allocation to a total of P637.9 billion.

The Senate failed to insist on the Lacson-proposed cuts in the DPWH budget, which it had approved in its version of the budget.

Lacson had recommended P68 billion in total reductions, most of which he said were earmarked for the department’s unresolved right-ofway (ROW) projects.

He said the DPWH had failed to spend billions this year because of ROW issues.

He said several senators and House members complained to him about the reductions.

“I thought all along that there were no more pork barrel funds,” he said sarcastically.

After the first meeting of the House-Senate conference committee on the budget, Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, appropriations committee chairman, told reporters that the DPWH reductions have been trimmed down to just P4 billion.

As it turned out, Lacson’s cuts were not only wiped out but the DPWH even received a huge augmentation.

Agencies traditionally receiving pork funds also got increases.

The Department of Education lost P2.5 billion, with the two chambers cutting its appropriation from P555.8 billion to P553.3 billion.

Some P4.8 billion was added to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), increasing its funding to P141.8 billion. The department is the repository of lawmakers’ allocations for financial assistance to their poor constituents.

Former DSWD secretary Judy Taguiwalo got into trouble with legislators for treating those funds as her own agency’s money and telling her field personnel to ignore referrals from politicians and members of the judiciary.

The Department of Agriculture received an additional P1.5 billion, or an increase to P53.3 billion. The department funds farm-to-market road projects.

Some P2.4 billion was added to the Department of Health, bringing its budget to P107.3 billion. The DOH allocates funding for health facilities like clinics and dispenses medical assistance to poor patients in government hospitals.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources lost P2.4 billion, or a reduced allocation of P24.9 billion.

A former Department of Budget and Management official, who did not want to be named, said the 2018 outlay “is the election budget.”

“They have made all election-related insertions in this budget in preparation for the senatorial-congressional-local polls in May 2019,” he claimed.