MANILA — The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) on Friday said all its projects were itemized after it was flagged for lump sums in its 2023 National Expenditure Program (NEP).

The House of Representatives' in-house think tank, the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department (CPBRD), noted that by spatial dimension, all regions will experience a cut in their budgets.

However, it also said there is a 16,916.8-percent increase in the allocation for DPWH "nationwide” projects to P628.2 billion in 2023 from just P3.7 billion in 2022.

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"This allocation consists of special purpose funds and lump sums that will be distributed to various regions during the budget year," the CPBRD said.

Lump sums are funds with no line items.

The CPBRD said that that the bulk of the DPWH operations budget will be lumped under the Metro Manila Central Office before it is finally allocated to the regions at the start of the fiscal year.

"This practice, however, is fundamentally unsound and unwarranted because it contradicts the principles of line-item budgeting which aims to promote greater transparency and accountability in the national budget," CPBRD said.

"The absence of a regional distribution of the operations budget also makes it difficult to determine whether the DPWH is allocating the scarce government resources to the regions or localities that need them the most," it added.

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House Deputy Minority Leader ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro inquired on some of these points during her turn at the budget briefing on Friday.

"Kapansin-pansin po dito yung kawalan ng regional distribution ng mga operations budget allocation for DPWH programs and projects. Basically lumped, naka-lump po siya sa NCR central office... Tama po ba ito?" Castro said.

(The lack of regional distribution in the operations budget allocation for DPWH programs and projects is noticeable. These are basically lumped in the NCR central office. Is this correct?)

DPWH Secretary Manny Bonoan said these funds would be released to regional offices for specific projects.

Castro then flagged the absence of details.

"Yes, naka-lump po siya, pero wala po siyang yung mga regions, yung detailed na mga project sa mga regions kasi dati po doon sa NEP natin in the past talagang meron po noon. In fact, sa mga district offices nakalagay, pero dito po parang di siya nakalagay," the lawmaker said.

(Yes it's lumped, but the regions, detailed projects are not here, unlike in our NEPs in the past. In fact, it's listed under district offices, but here, it's not.)

But Bonoan said the DPWH submitted its itemization.

"Meron po kami itemized list of projects, na nandoon sa lump sum allocation for the regional offices po, we can furnish a copy of the details of the projects at the regional level," he said.

(We have an itemized list of projects in the lump sum allocation for the regional offices.)

He also denied that most of the funds were lumped under Metro Manila.

"I think we have the complete detail under our NEP," he said.

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