Dizon Vows Action vs. DPWH Execs Over Duplicate Projects in 2027 Budget

Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon said on Friday that the department will look into the flagged duplicate, overlapping, or double-funded infrastructure projects in its proposed 2027 budget, and vowed to relieve officials who allowed these projects to slip through. During the DPWH’s budget deliberation, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian presented eight types of red flags that his office spotted in the agency’s budget proposal for locally funded operations for fiscal year 2027: Red Flag 1: No station limit/bridge ID (total of 2,570 projects) Red Flag 2: Duplicated projects (total of 189 projects) Red Flag 3: Reappear from the 2026 GAA to 2027 NEP (total of 258 projects) Red Flag 4: No coordinates (total of 3,543 projects) Red Flag 5: Lump-sum projects (total of 347 projects) Red Flag 6: Overlapping/fragmented projects (total of 533 projects) Red Flag 7: Unspecified work scope (total of 62 projects) Red Flag 8: Conflicting type of work (total of 20 projects) In total, there were at least 7,107 "red flags" in the budget for locally funded operations, according to Gatchalian. This number of projects accounts for 62.37% of all DPWH projects and is worth ₱251,810,609,000. In response, the DPWH said that among the flagged projects, 6,113 actually have station limits, bridge IDs, and coordinates backed by supporting documents, which were simply omitted from the project title in the agency’s submitted National Expenditure Program (NEP), or the 2027 budget proposal. “Actually, the station limits are actually in the supporting documents of the—the station limits, bridge IDs, and coordinates themselves of those 6,113 projects are actually in the supporting documents submitted by the district engineers and regional offices,” Dizon explained. “Hindi lang po nasiama sa project title sa National Expenditure Program, and this is easily verifiable,” he added. To resolve the issue, Dizon said the department will resubmit the line items complete with the station limits, IDs, and coordinates to the Senate Committee on Finance. As for the remaining 994 projects, the DPWH chief explained that 347 are lump-sum items, which the department will work to detail and specify. Meanwhile, the remaining 647 projects will be jointly reviewed by the Office of the Senate President and the Senate Committee on Finance. “We are left with 647, roughly about 5% of the number of projects in the budget, and these are now going to be jointly validated,” Dizon said. He noted that if any of these projects are proven to be duplicates, double-funded, or overlapping, the district engineers or heads of implementing offices will be relieved and held accountable. “Since ang atin pong mga district engineer, heads of implementing offices, ay pumirma ang nagsumite ng Certificate of Implementability at kasama po doon ay ang kanilang pag-attest [with] their signature na walang duplicate, walang overlap, walang double funding, itaga ninyo po sa bato… ‘yun pong district engineer na ‘yon ora mismo po tatanggalin ko at papakasuhan ko po ‘yung mga yon kasi pumirma sila ng isang dokumento na sinabi nilang walang duplicate, walang overlap, walang double funding,” Dizon said. —LDF, GMA News