DBM: Baseless to say usec behind DPWH budget ‘insertion’

Accusations that Budget Undersecretary Amenah Pangandaman engineered the “insertion” of P75 billion into the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for 2019 are baseless, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said on Thursday.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno has been summoned by the House appropriations committee on Friday to answer questions about alleged irregularities in the preparation of the P3.8-trillion proposed budget for 2019, including the P75 billion that congressmen insist was added to the DPWH budget for a “flood control scam.”

Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued a subpoena to compel Diokno to appear at the House inquiry.

In a statement, the DBM confirmed Diokno would appear at the hearing, together with Pangandaman.

Pangandaman accused

At Wednesday’s hearing, DPWH employees claimed that it was Pangandaman who ordered that P75 billion be added to the DPWH budget without the agency’s knowledge.

Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., the House appropriations committee chair, said Diokno, who had refused to face the panel because of his ill treatment by congressmen during Question Hour in the House in December last year, had no more excuse for not facing the lawmakers.

Andaya said Diokno had a lot to explain, including why his chief of staff, Pangandaman, could directly add flood control projects worth billions of pesos to the DPWH spending program without telling the agency.

In its statement on Thursday, the DBM said the accusations against Pangandaman were “without basis and are meant to discredit the good reputation of this administration’s DBM as one of the most transparent and credible institutions in the world.”

P75B explained

Diokno had already explained the P75 billion, but the congressmen appeared to have missed it.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo also had said Public Works Secretary Mark Villar was aware of the P75 billion because he was present at the Cabinet meeting on July 9 last year where President Duterte approved the national spending proposal for 2019.

Diokno had said that the DPWH originally proposed a budget of P652 billion, not P488 billion as Andaya had claimed.

The DBM, Diokno said, initially approved a budget of P480.2 billion for the DPWH but later added P75.5 billion to it to fulfill a government commitment to spend at least 5 percent of the gross domestic product for infrastructure.

The P75 billion was retained in the final version of the spending bill approved by a Senate-House conference committee on Wednesday.

Andaya called it pork. —WITH REPORTS FROM MELVIN GASCON AND CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO