House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Rep. Mikaela Suansing. Photo from House of Representatives
MANILA — House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Rep. Mikaela Suansing addressed on Monday Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian’s statement on alleged “red flag” items in the Department of Public Works And Highways (DPWH)’s proposed 2027 budget.
Suasing said they relied on the assurance of both the DPWH and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) that projects were vetted.
“We rely on DPWH's and DBM's word that these projects went through the proper vetting before they were even included in the NEP," she told reporters.
There is also an “additional layer of vetting” from the House of Representatives for initiatives that would make it to the House General Appropriations Bill (HGAB), according to Suansing.
"Tumutulong pa po particularly for OO2 projects — flood control and drainage projects — ‘yung Project NOAH, and other stakeholders in the scientific community to do an additional vetting,” she said.
In a release on Gatchalian’s website, the senator said more than 62 percent or over 7,000 infrastructure projects evaluated under DPWH’s locally funded operations had at least one “major budgetary red flag.”
“Mayroon kasi siyang mga classifications — Red Flag Category 1. I think it's up to Red Flag Category 7. I don't want po kasi na pangunahan siguro si SP Win or mag-assume as to what their basis were for tagging certain projects under particular red flags. Pero siguro po ang masasabi ko na lang po is, kasi po ang cinomment-an po ni SP Win actually, National Expenditure Program po, ‘di ba? So talaga it's really the NEP that he scrutinized,” Suansing said.
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‘WALA DAPAT DUPLICATE’
Gatchalian flagged 189 items that were supposedly duplicated in the DPWH proposed budget.
Suansing said she does not have a list of this, but mentioned the possibility of multiple phases of a project appearing as duplicates.
“Parang it showed as a duplicate, but actually hindi. It's like phase 1 and phase 2 of, for example po, it's a bypass road… So, paminsan, hindi lang naka-catch na it's showing na it's the same title, but it's actually phase 1 and phase 2 of the same bypass road,” Suansing told the media.
“Most definitely, ‘yung duplication in a sense na same station number, same coordinates, that one we're looking through na wala dapat duplicate,” Suansing added.
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