President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is intent on recovering funds for foreign-assisted projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Congress has substantially cut appropriations for DPWH programs, activities, and projects (PAPs) in the 2025 national budget.
The President met with DPWH officials on Thursday at the Malacañan Palace to discuss the result of the agency’s budget review under the Fiscal Year 2025 General Appropriations Act vis-à-vis the FY 2025 National Expenditure Program.
“Because we asked for PhP70 billion and they (lawmakers) gave us PhP23 billion,” the President said. He emphasized the focus should be on projects that “will make a difference to people’s lives.”
He also wanted DPWH to prioritize maintenance of agency projects, feasibility studies, and right of way issues.
Under the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), budget reductions in the DPWH’s programs, activities, and projects (PAPs) included payments of right-of-way (ROW); contractual obligations, Value Added Tax, and other taxes; pre-feasibility study (FS), feasibility study, and primary and detailed engineering; public-private partnership strategic support fund; and KAlsada TUngo sa PAliparan, Riles, at DaungAN (KATUPARAN) Program.
The outlay was also reduced for the agency’s Bridge Program, Network Development Program, Tourism Road Infrastructure Program (TRIP), Roads Leveraging Linkages of Industry and Trade (ROLL-IT) Program, and foreign-assisted projects.
Despite this, total budget of the DPWH increased by PhP188.80 billion, or 20.98 percent from the proposed PhP900 billion in the FY 2025 National Expenditure Program to PhP1,088.80 billion in the FY 2025 GAA. | PND
