DAY 3 of the bicameral conference committee (Bicam) deliberations on the proposed 2026 national budget was cancelled due to a deadlock over the Senate’s PhP45-billion reduction in the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), which the House of Representatives insisted should be restored. The Senate cut was based on reduction factors tied to updated project costings for infrastructure projects, that came from the DPWH itself. On Day 2 of the Bicam, DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon appealed for the Bicam to restore the cuts, triggering the impasse.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Senator Sherwin Gatchalian in a press conference stressed that the cost reductions were in truth made in close
consultation with DPWH during the Senate’s budget deliberations.
Data analysis made by the People’s budget Coalition (PBC), established that uniform budget decrease patterns were made in the Senate version within clusters of infrastructure projects, ranging from 1.5 percent to 17.5 percent. These patterns are consistent with the reduction factors that Senator Gatchalian had publicly discussed earlier.
More than just a technical dispute, the deadlock over the PhP45-billion budget cut goes to the heart of whether the 2026 budget will correct, or will once again reproduce the problem of bloated costing that contributed to the large-scale corruption in public infrastructure spending.
Despite prior consultation with the Senate, Secretary Dizon now argues that the DPWH applied the reductions too broadly when it should instead be done project-by-project during budget implementation. This flip-flop by DPWH at this decisive stage of budget finalization raises urgent public questions.
If DPWH itself had earlier advanced cost-reduction mechanics as part of an effort to address overpricing, why the belated appeal to restore the very cuts that it had proposed in the first place? What changed, substantively and politically, between the Senate deliberations and the Bicam?
The public is entitled to ask: Are there expectations and undue pressure embedded in the “already-promised” project costings, including the risk of
kickback-driven overpricing that has already been exposed?
DPWH’s proposal to restore the PhP45-billion in its budget, and just allow the DPWH to “cut later” through the program of works, posits a dangerous
institutional setup. It effectively asks Congress to approve what the DPWH itself has admitted to be a bloated budget, then rely on DPWH’s internal executive process to simply correct the overprice afterward. The proposal undermines Congress’s power of the purse; it creates discretionary spaces with reduced traceability for the Executive branch. To make matters worse, the House’s budget version retains the original costings that DPWH has submitted. The question is who is defending what and in whose interest.
Restoring the PhP45 billion in the DPWH budget means undoing PhP45 billion worth of Senate realignments for other equally deserving agencies and services. The Bicam budget movements are zero-sum within the overall totals, unless the movement is a decrease. The public must be clearly informed what expenditure items will be cut and displaced, if the PhP45 billion budget is restored in the DPWH.
Any attempt to “resolve” this deadlock by again accommodating increases through Unprogrammed Appropriations is unacceptable. This mechanism has already been documented and established as a major vulnerability for corrupt and politically negotiated spending, and must not be used as a backdoor solution.
We strongly urge Congress resolve this matter in open Bicam proceedings, not through closed-door side-caucuses that defeat the very purpose of the welcome move to livestream Bicam discussions. The public must see and understand: The basis for the PhP45B reductions, including the adjustment factors applied; the DPWH’s justification for any reversal; and the final list of items to be affected by any restoration or realignment.
Beyond the current deadlock, serious concerns remain in the 2026 budget, including the continued reliance on soft patronage programs such as AICS, TUPAD and MAIFIP. These should be replaced by better targeted, rules-based and institutionalized programs in health and social protection. There is likewise grave concern over the still bloated confidential and intelligence funds.
These are all public funds. The public has the right to know whether the 2026 budget is being finalized to protect the people’s interest, or to continue enabling corruption. R2KRN and PBC call on Congress and DPWH to resolve the PhP45- billion conundrum transparently, on the record, and with full public justification.
We will continue to monitor the 2026 budget not only at the ongoing appropriation stage, but also throughout execution and accountability. Our painstaking work of establishing how corrupt mechanisms operate, who enable them, why they persist, and how to secure personal and institutional accountability, will likewise continue. — Right to Know Right Now Coalition (R2KRN) and People’s Budget Coalition (PBC)