‘It is thus incumbent on new Secretary Manny Bonoan to guard and ensure that the DPWH budget of P272.87 billion for next year will be spent judiciously and according to law.’
WHO among the government’s top officials has the final say on how much to spend on a legitimate, pro-people project?
The pecking order among high officials involved in the release of funds is this: the President, the secretary of the department concerned, and the undersecretary in charge of approving the release of funds and how much should be released.
To answer the question, we pick just one emergency situation when a major department of the Executive branch needed money to help the victims of a disaster. A case in point is when typhoon “Odette” devastated wide swathes of Region 8 last December.
Immediately, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) cleared road sections that link Maasin City and Sogod town, along with Southern Leyte and Baybay City. Other roads cleared immediately were in Bato, Bontoc, Silago, St. Bernard, Himayangan and Abuyog.
The DPWH Visayas and even those from Luzon and Mindanao assisted in the operation, by sheer spirit of cooperation and official responsibility, and not because the sitting DPWH secretary then, Roger Mercado, is from Region 8.
It was reported that then President Rodrigo Duterte himself instructed Secretary Mercado to go all out in spending every peso allocated for emergency disaster mitigation, rescue and rehabilitation, temporary housing, etc. for the typhoon victims of Odette. Secretary Mercado, ever the good soldier, proceeded to instruct DPWH Undersecretary Catalina Cabral, who then had the authority to release the funds, to release the maximum amount for the purpose ordered by Duterte. Cabral told Mercado that the department only had P500 million for the purpose. It turned out later that the DPWH had P1 billion in the budget for such, but was limited to spend the lesser amount because of Cabral’s unintended or intended error, for which she was later relieved and transferred to another office, or what they call “floating status.”
Mercado — a governor and congressman before he became DPWH secretary — may be considered an outsider who was appointed to the top post and had become a clueless and unwilling victim of inside maneuvers in the highly controversial department with the biggest budget. The Constitution says the Department of Education should get the biggest budgetary allocation but no, in reality it is the DPWH because the education budget includes those of the Commission on Higher Education, TESDA and the state colleges and universities.
It is thus incumbent on new Secretary Manny Bonoan to guard and ensure that the DPWH budget of P272.87 billion for next year will be spent judiciously and according to law. Meanwhile, Usec Cabral is back in her former position, deciding on where to release the money, and by how much.
The President, the Secretary, or the Undersecretary? Time to answer the question posed above.
