DPWH gets P529.6B budget for 2026

The bicameral conference committee (bicam) on early Thursday morning approved a P529.6 billion budget for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), saving a total of P20.7 billion following the reductions of overpriced construction materials for government infrastructure projects.

This came as the bicam wrapped up the extensive deliberations on the proposed P6.793-trillion national budget for fiscal year 2026 after four days.

According to Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate committee on finance, the savings were a result of the application of the Construction Materials Price Data (CMPD), which was provided by the DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon, on around 10,000 projects.

“Base doon sa submission ng DPWH, sa bagong submission nila, na dito sa bagong adjustment factor, pinasok na nila ang logistics, pinasok na nila ang hauling cost at iba pang maging cost, so naging mas near actual, hindi pa actual, but near actual na ang cost nila,” Gatchalian said.

(Based on the DPWH's submission based on the new adjustment factor, they have already included the logistics, the hauling cost and other costs, so the cost of materials has become closer to the actual cost.)

“Ang resulta ng savings na nakuha natin ay P20.7 billion. So confident akong sabihin na wala nang overpriced na materyales sa loob nitong budget na ito,” he added.

(The result of the savings we got is P20.7 billion. So I am confident to say that there are no more overpriced materials within this budget.)

Of the P20.7 billion savings, the bicam realigned P16.52 billion to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), while P4.25 billion was transferred to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund.

To recall, the DPWH earlier appealed to the Senate to restore amounts deducted from the agency’s proposed 2026 budget due to reductions based on the CMPD.

House Committee on Appropriations chairperson and Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Angela Suansing said that the bicam was able to substantially decrease the DPWH budget by over P300 billion from the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP) or by P94 billion from the House-approved General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

“Wala po kaming kina-cut na hindi namin pinapaalam sa mga ahensya (we don’t cut budget without informing the agency). I think that’s usually the main point of contention. We also don’t put in items in the budget of the respective agencies without the approval of the head of agency,” Suansing said in an ambush interview.

The Senate, on final reading, slashed the DPWH’s proposed 2026 budget to P570.48 billion from P624.48 billion under the GAB.

The DPWH initially proposed a P881.31 billion budget under the NEP, but this was reduced after the removal of locally funded flood control projects amid the revelations of substandard or ghost projects.

Gatchalian, meanwhile, assured that the budget cuts were “acceptable” for DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon since the bicam has been in constant communication with the Executive.

“In fact, may mga letters sila. Nagpapadala rin sila ng mga data para mapagaralan namin,” the senator said.

(In fact, the DPWH sends us letters and data so we could study them.) — LDF/BAP, GMA Integrated News