THE Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has slashed its 2026 proposed budget by P255 billion — from P881 billion to P625 billion — following a line-by-line review to ensure that it is accurate, transparent and devoid of any unneeded insertions that are not part of the National Expenditure Program (NEP).
Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon on Wednesday said the revised budget removed the funding for completed and duplicate projects, which enabled the government to save P255 billion, which could be used on other sectors such as agriculture, education, health care, housing, labor, social welfare and information technology.
The highlight of this revision is President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directive to remove all locally funded flood control projects amounting to P252 billion, Dizon said.
The President had earlier ordered Dizon to conduct a sweeping review of the DPWH proposed P880-billion budget to ensure transparency and the proper use of funds following the discovery of ghost, substandard and duplicate flood control projects worth hundreds of billions of pesos.
Following initial results of the DPWH budget review, Dizon said almost 1/3, or P268 billion of the department’s proposed 2026 budget, was allocated to flood control programs alone.
“I was stunned by this budget,” he said.
The President ordered the scrapping of the budget for flood control projects for 2026 to cleanse the national budget of insertions and other anomalous line items.
“So, there will be no budget for flood control in 2026, because there is still P350 billion for 2025 that has not really been spent. So, the work will continue,” the President said.
Dizon said the P350 billion will be used in flood control priority areas tagged as red zone or in areas most prone to flooding based on Project NOAH, the country’s primary disaster risk reduction and management program.
A scrutiny of the 2026 DPWH budget pointed to six red flags — flood control and river wall projects without station numbers that make them nearly impossible to locate; duplicate projects; contracts divided into phases despite being one project; costs with rounded-off amounts; entries with questionable code names; and projects that appear in the 2026 NEP even though they were already funded in 2025.
Dizon on Wednesday also warned all DPWH officials and employees against noncompliance with existing laws and guidelines related to the bidding process.
He issued the warning as the DPWH teamed up with the newly created Independent Commission for Infrastructure in cleansing the agency of deeply rooted widespread corruption in the implementation of flood control projects and other locally funded infrastructure where 70 percent out of a total of P545 billion allocated to flood mitigation funds from 2022 to 2025 or during the first three years of the Marcos government went to corruption.
