Lacson flags P469 billion in repeat funding for DPWH projects

MANILA, Philippines, September 10 ------ Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Wednesday raised the red flag on P469 billion worth of infrastructure projects that had already been financed by the government for implementation this year but were again funded in the proposed P4.5-trillion national budget for 2021, saying this contravened the 1987 Constitution.

Lacson asked Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado to remove the questionable items from the 2021 National Expenditure Program (NEP), which was presented by President Duterte’s economic managers to the Senate finance committee, chaired by Sen. Sonny Angara. Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and Sen. Risa Hontiveros also questioned the government’s priorities, noting that the budget for the anti-insurgency campaign was bigger than the allotment for departments tasked with leading the recovery from the debilitating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to the economy.

Lump-sum appropriations

Lacson, whose scrutiny of the government’s yearly budget had saved billions of pesos from being gobbled up in corruption, said more than P396 billion of the proposed allocation was lodged as lump-sum appropriations in the central office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). He said another P73 billion worth of DPWH projects, covering a total of 2,933 items, had been “reappropriated” with incremental amounts, with some getting as much as 50 percent of the original allocation.

“Why is this so and how did this happen? Primarily because of the constitutional issues involved, I don’t think we should allow this when we finally pass the budget measure before yearend,” Lacson told Mr. Duterte’s economic team at the budget hearing. “These would easily fall under the Supreme Court [decision] … that ruled that these are lump-sum appropriations and therefore, patently illegal,” he said. One of the projects was a road in Southern Leyte, which received a total of P100 million for 2020 but was allocated with another P42 million for next year.

Another was a provincial road connecting Pangasinan and La Union, which already got P6.5 million this year but was given P650,000 more in the latest spending program. Lacson said this could be the first time that infrastructure projects of the DPWH and the Department of Transportation (DOTr) were getting “reappropriations” in his years of reviewing the annual budget measure as a legislator.

Source: inquirer.net