Strict financial scrutiny in Congress is halting billions in public works spending as lawmakers enforce zero-tolerance standards against unverified infrastructure line items.
Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian announced on Tuesday that the Senate will axe 295 infrastructure projects worth P8.836 billion from the proposed 2027 national budget due to missing documentation from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
“The Senate is committed unequivocally in weeding out unsubstantiated line items, including those lacking concrete and verifiable technical support, to ensure that every item in the final version is shovel-ready. Unverifiable line items will not receive a single peso of public funding,” Gatchalian said in a statement.
The legislative reduction follows a letter from former DPWH secretary Vince Dizon, which disclosed that an internal agency evaluation identified 295 projects as non-compliant.
The agency’s internal review was initiated after Gatchalian pointed out eight categories of budgetary red flags during a September 25 Senate hearing on the DPWH’s proposed 2027 budget.
During that hearing, Gatchalian revealed that over 62 percent, or 7,107 of the 11,395 projects evaluated by his office, contained at least one major budgetary red flag.
Flagged line items included projects missing station numbers and geographic coordinates, lump-sum allocations, overlapping or fragmented projects, and conflicting descriptions of work scope.
Gatchalian noted that the identified red flags stemmed from an analysis of projects listed in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) submitted by the executive branch.
He emphasized that the upper chamber will not allocate funds to infrastructure line items that lack technical backing.
“Malinaw ang mandato ng Senado, kung walang kaukulang dokumento, walang pondo (The Senate’s mandate is clear: no appropriate documents, no funds),” Gatchalian also said.
The budget cuts coincide with separate audit concerns regarding contractor qualification protocols within the public works department.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson stated that DPWH officials must account for 11,391 projects worth P459 billion flagged by the Commission on Audit (COA) for being awarded to contractors with questionable financial capacity.
Lacson noted that the agency officials leading the DPWH at the time of the awards must provide an explanation, which can be established by cross-referencing the budget years covered in the COA report.
The COA report highlighted that out of 27,094 sampled infrastructure contracts, 11,391 contracts with an aggregate cost of P459.262 billion involved bidders whose Statements of Ongoing Government and Private Contracts omitted ongoing and awarded commitments.
Audit findings indicated that incomplete declarations led to overstated Net Financial Contracting Capacity (NFCC) calculations, compromising the accuracy of financial eligibility assessments during post-disqualification evaluations.
The COA report added that 198 contractors received additional contracts despite having incomplete prior projects.
Audit disclosures revealed that 198 contracts awarded to specific contractors under the DPWH North Manila District Engineering Office in the National Capital Region initially passed NFCC requirements during preliminary bid examinations, but the same contractors were subsequently awarded multiple contracts under Early Procurement Activities.