Drilon questions ‘most unusual’ P345-B lump sums in 2021 DPWH budget

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon (Screengrab from a video posted by the Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)

MANILA, Philippines — Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon questioned the Department of Public Works and Highway (DPWH) on Wednesday for having P345 billion in lump sum appropriations under its proposed 2021 budget.

“This is the first time that I see from the DPWH budget around P345 billion in lump sum appropriations. This is most unusual. This kind of budgeting does not augur well for our policy of transparency,” Drilon said during the Senate hearing on the proposed P666.47-billion budget of the DPWH for 2021.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson had earlier flagged a higher amount of P396 billion lodged under the proposed budget of the DPWH central office.

In response to Drilon, DPWH Secretary Mark Villar said that the agency subsequently submitted an attachment to the National Expenditure Program (NEP), transmitted to Congress by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), to itemize the lump sum appropriation.

But Drilon questioned this, saying that he could not recall “any instance in the past when a voluminous document was submitted and was tried to pass off as part of the constitutionally required expenditure program.”

“In this case, the alleged 1,200-page addendum was belatedly submitted. While the Secretary of DPWH tried to explain the circumstances behind this, it does not change the fact that there is huge lump sum appropriation and that is never before seen in the history of the DPWH budget,” the minority leader said.

Of the P345 billion lump sum appropriation, Drilon said P29.04 billion was earmarked for bridge programs, P65.38 billion for flood management programs, and P49.63 billion for the agency’s convergence and special support program.

Further, he said that of P201.2 billion of lump sums allocated for road programs, P16.23 billion was allotted for widening of primary roads, P14.48 billion for secondary roads, and P6 billion for tertiary roads.

“These are huge lump sum amounts. We do not know how to deal with this. This is a challenge for the committee and the Senate to be able to scrutinize these huge lump-sum items,” Drilon said.

Drilon also questioned why P345.25 billion, or over 50 percent of the agency’s total budget, was lodged under the DPWH central office and not distributed among its regional units.

While P49.63 billion in lump sum amount was lodged under the central office for convergence and special support program, only P16.8 billion was identified for the North Manila District Engineering Office, Drilon pointed out.

In a separate statement, Drilon stressed that the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that lump sums were unconstitutional.

Drilon asked the Senate finance committee to do everything to disaggregate any lump sum item in the DPWH budget in the spirit of transparency.

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