Congressmen say billions of ‘insertions’ made at Executive level
VARIOUS political parties in the House of Representatives yesterday urged Speaker Martin Romualdez to return to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) the proposed P6.793 trillion national budget for 2026 following the discovery of billions of insertions allegedly made at the level of the Executive department.
In a joint press conference, the lawmakers led by Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno of Antipolo City also asked their colleagues at the House to stop participating in the budget hearings amid allegations that congressmen were the ones who made the insertions in the 2025 national budget during the bicameral budget deliberations last year.
Puno was joined by Deputy Speakers Janette Garin (Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats) and Bambi Emano (Nacionalista Party), and Reps. Mark Enverga (Nationalist People’s Coalition), Eleandro Jesus Madrona (NP), Manila Rep. Rolan Valeriano (NUP) and Jose Alvarez (NPC).
They particularly pointed to the “questionable” and “erroneous” items in the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP), which was prepared by the Executive led by the DBM, such as new entries for projects that were already completed.
“We cannot, in good conscience, begin deliberations on a national budget that is riddled with questionable allocations,” Puno said.
“The House owes it to the Filipino people to ensure that every peso is allocated properly, transparently, and free of corruption. At this point, the 2026 NEP falls short of that standard,” he also said.
Puno, a former interior secretary, said that other departments “are pointing fingers at the DBM, the DBM is pointing fingers at the other departments.”
“We feel they should settle their disputes first, come up with the correct budget formulations before they send them to us, so that we can reasonably proceed on the path that is required moving forward,” he said.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, in a joint press conference with Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon, said the lawmakers’ plan to return the proposed 2026 NEP to Malacañang is unprecedented.
She made the statement as she and Dizon vowed to complete in two weeks a review of the proposed 2026 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), which was ordered by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The DPWH is at the center of the controversy involving “ghost” and substandard flood control projects, which are funded with billions of pesos in the national budget.
The President has directed Pangandaman and Dizon to “clean out” the DPWH’s proposed budget for next year and make sure that it does not include allocations for projects that have already been completed or those that do not exist.
Pangandaman said submitting an errata to Congress in relation to the DPWH proposed spending program for next year will be better than returning the entire NEP to Malacañang.
“Ipapadala natin sa kanila ‘yung bagong listahan, ‘yung mga changes na mangyayari doon. Sa tingin po namin mas madali ‘yun na proseso at procedure kaysa magbalik tayo ng ganyan kasi never pa po siyang nangyari… ‘Pag never pa nangyari baka umaakyat pa kung saan-saan ‘yan, ‘di ba? (We will send them [lawmakers] the new list, the changes that will be made. We think that process and procedure is easier than returning the budget because that has never happened before. If it never happened before, it might even be questioned somewhere, right?),” she said, raising the possibility that the House’s plan could be questioned legally.
She assured members of the House that the review of the DPWH budget will not delay the passage of the budget.
‘SERIOUS AND SYSTEMIC ANOMALIES’
The House leaders said their review uncovered “serious and systemic” anomalies in the preparation of the 2026 NEP, particularly in the budget proposals of the DPWH, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Philippine National Police (PNP), and Department of Agriculture (DA).
Puno said congressmen do not know how to proceed with the budget deliberations because they will be accused of wrongdoing once again if they introduce amendments to the budget.
“We do not know how to deal with it. We have to practically redo the entire submission to us. We do not want to be suspected of any untoward action. We don’t want it to appear that we are not accepting the rightful recommendations of DBM,” he said.
“We are asking members now to refrain from any further participation in any budget hearings until this matter is resolved,” he added.
Puno said that as early as last week or even earlier, he already had “misgivings about the budget with respect to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), how district budgets all over the country were mangled, and how really serious, serious questions needed to be raised about those budget entries.”
Last Friday, Marikina City Rep. Marcelino Teodoro said that completed infrastructure projects in his district are still being funded a fresh P100 million under the 2026 NEP.
He particularly cited a slope protection project in Balanti Creek in Barangay Sto. Niño, which, despite having been completed in 2023, is again in the 2026 NEP under flood mitigation programs.
Teodoro also said that other completed flood projects were again listed for funding in the 2026 spending program, alongside road rehabilitation for streets that remain in good condition.
He said he has already asked the DPWH to clarify the duplication, which came from agency-prepared listings and not congressional identification by lawmakers.
‘NOT ISOLATED’
In a joint statement, the lawmakers said among the irregularities identified were the following: flood-control projects with identical amounts, totaling tens of billions of pesos, suggesting templated or copy-paste budgeting; double appropriations and line items funding projects already completed; oversized lump-sum “nationwide” allocations under DPWH that weaken transparency and hinder proper scrutiny; reports of unsolicited proposals for billions worth of firearms under the DILG/PNP, opening the door to insertions outside the President’s original submission; and reports of “allocation-for-sale” schemes in the DA’s budget for farm-to-market roads.
“These are not isolated mistakes. They reflect deeper flaws in the way the budget was crafted,” they said. “Before Congress can deliberate responsibly, the Executive must first correct and clean up these provisions.”
The House leaders also called on the secretaries of DPWH, DBM, DA, and DILG, as well as the chief PNP, “to explain directly to President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and to the Filipino public how these anomalies were allowed to slip through the budget drafting process.”
“We respect the President’s vision of a Bagong Pilipinas, but that vision cannot be achieved if his Cabinet submits a budget that invites corruption and mismanagement ,” the statement said. “It is their duty to account for these lapses.”
“The House of the People stands firm: no budget riddled with anomalies will pass under our watch. Our constitutional power of the purse exists precisely to safeguard the hard-earned money of the Filipino taxpayer. That is a duty we will never abandon,” they added.
Puno said political party leaders “have been watching all of the developments, we have been constantly talking to one another day and night to discuss the problems that have arisen with respect to the 2026 proposed budget.”
“We raised questions about whether or not the DBM was handling the budget preparations properly, and whether or not what was coming to us (which was the NEP) was a result of irresponsibility or some oversight that maybe can be justified,” he said, recalling that the President said in his State of the Nation Address last July 28 that “he will not accept a mangled budget” and that he is not afraid of having a reenacted budget next year.
‘ENOUGH MISTRUST’
Puno cited as another example a P10 billion item in the proposed DA budget for farm-to-market roads, saying these were “being peddled to other parties.”
“We don’t want to be accused of replacing or amending by errata a huge portion of the budget,” he said.
“There has been enough and too much mistrust already going around, especially with respect to the House of Representatives, and we don’t want this to continue. So we toss it back to the DBM so that they can find a logical explanation and resolution to this thing,” he also said.
Puno said returning the budget to the DBM “for corrections will be more systematic and practical, and instead of us having to correct the district budgets of more than 250 districts, perhaps the DBM can now do what it should have done in the first place and correct these matters before they send it (back) to us.”
“So, this is the position that the party leaders have taken, and we hope that you will all understand our intention that this thing be resolved correctly and properly. We, in the House were the ones who first discovered all of these things. We do not believe that we should fix what other people caused. We are not the ones that should fix the problems that have begun in other places,” he said.
DPWH BUDGET REVIEW
Pangandaman and Dizon met yesterday afternoon at the DBM’s office in Manila, hours after the President ordered a “sweeping review” of the DPWH’s proposed budget for next year.
“Nag-usap kami ni Secretary Mina, we both agreed it should not be more than two weeks. Could be earlier but not more than two weeks (Secretary Mina and I already talked, we both agreed that it [review] should not be more than two weeks. Could be earlier but not more than two weeks),” Dizon said.
He said they would start the review on the alleged projects that have already been completed but were still included in the NEP and the projects that were allegedly been inserted.
He said he intends to report the budget review to Congress when the DPWH’s proposed appropriation is tackled on Friday.
Pangandaman said that once the review is complete, the DBM would submit to Congress the proposed changes, if any, through an errata.
She said the submission of an errata has been done in the past when departments wanted to change some parts of their proposed budgets. – With Jocelyn Montemayor
