Drilon Questions ‘Most Unusual’ P345-B Lump Sums in DPWH 2021 Budget

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon (screenshot from video posted by the Senate Office of Information and Public Relations)

MANILA, Philippines – Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon questioned the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) on Wednesday for having P345 billion in lump sum appropriations under its proposed 2021 budget.

“This is the first time I’ve seen in the DPWH budget around P345 billion in lump sum appropriations. This is most unusual. This type of budget does not bode well for our transparency policy, ”Drilon said during the Senate hearing on DPWH’s proposed P666.47 billion budget for 2021.

Senator Panfilo Lacson had previously pointed to a greater amount of P396 billion deposited under the proposed budget of the DPWH headquarters.

In response to Drilon, DPWH Secretary Mark Villar said the agency subsequently submitted an annex to the National Expenditure Program (NEP), transmitted to Congress by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), to detail the allocation of sum global.

But Drilon disputed this, saying it could not recall “any cases in the past when a voluminous document was submitted and attempted to pass off as part of the constitutionally required spending schedule.”

“In this case, the alleged 1,200-page appendix was submitted late. While the DPWH Secretary tried to explain the circumstances behind this, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a huge lump sum allocation and that has never been seen before in the history of DPWH’s budget, ”said the minority leader. .

Of the lump sum allocation of P345 billion, Drilon said that P29.04 billion went to bridge programs, P65.38 billion to flood management programs and P49.63 billion to the special support program and agency convergence.

In addition, he said that out of P201.2 billion of lump sums allocated for highway programs, P16.23 billion were allocated for the expansion of primary roads, P14.48 billion for secondary roads and P6 billion for tertiary roads.

“These are huge lump sums. We don’t know how to deal with this. This is a challenge for the committee and the Senate to be able to examine these huge lump sum items, ”said Drilon.

Drilon also questioned why P345.25 billion, or more than 50 percent of the agency’s total budget, was deposited with DPWH’s central office and not distributed among its regional units.

While P49.63 billion in a lump sum was deposited with the central office for the convergence and special support program, only P16.8 billion was identified for the Manila North District Office of Engineering, Drilon noted.

In a separate statement, Drilon emphasized that the Supreme Court had previously ruled that the lump sums were unconstitutional.

Drilon asked the Senate finance committee to make every effort to disaggregate any lump sum items in the DPWH budget in a spirit of transparency.

[atm]

Read next

Don’t miss out on the latest news and information.

For comments, complaints or inquiries, please contact us.