In 2026, DPWH faces scrutiny on the ground—and from space
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) enters the new year with a drastically altered spending plan due to a massive cut it sustained in the 2026 national budget.
The decisions of its officials in implementing projects will also be closely watched—not just on the ground but also from space.
Based on the final report by the bicameral conference committee, which Congress ratified on Monday, the DPWH will get only P529.6 billion, or around 40 percent of the original P881.3 billion proposed by the executive branch in the National Expenditure Program.
The DPWH sustained a hefty cut of about P94 billion in the House proposal of P624 billion, after funding for new flood control projects was completely removed and the Senate recomputed the value of about 10,000 infrastructure projects.
The final 2026 general appropriations bill (GAB), now awaiting President Marcos’ approval, also introduces special provisions aimed at ensuring strict implementation on the use of DPWH funds.
One provision requires aerial verification and authorizes the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) authorized to monitor and validate flood control projects via satellite imagery, analytical tools and other data systems.
It proposes that the DPWH, together with PhilSA and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), publish its findings on an online platform shared with the Department of Budget and Management, Department of Economy, Planning and Development, and the Commission on Audit.
The DPWH and PhilSA are also expected to work together in developing flood-mapping systems with the help of artificial intelligence, and have mutual access to remote-sensing and other geospatial data (or data regarding a particular location) for monitoring or validating projects.
Updated project costs
PhilSA will also provide technical training for DPWH personnel in geospatial analytics.
Another special provision requires the DPWH to immediately update the costing of all infrastructure projects based on approved Construction Materials Price Data (CMPD).
The CMPD has long served as the department’s basis for estimating project budgets. But under the 2026 GAB, the DPWH is required to give regular updates on its spending based on the CMPD, which Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon has further modified during the last budget deliberations as a deterrent to overpricing.
The DPWH must publish a report indicating the original and updated costs of all projects included in the final budget approved by the President. It should also provide the justification and evaluation made for each project, along with consolidated monthly report detailing the costs and status of implementation.
‘Science-based’ flood works
The committee also introduced provisions intended to move the DPWH away from piecemeal flood control projects and more oriented toward building wider, network-based systems.
Budget reform advocates particularly wanted this shift, arguing that the flood control program should be “science-based,” with the big picture in mind, rather than being parochial or driven by patronage.
The DPWH must now coordinate with the DENR to adopt a master plan integrating water resources management and flood mitigation, to ensure all projects are supported by geospatial and hydrologic (referring to water’s effect on land) studies.
The DPWH is also mandated to incorporate nature-based solutions, such as mangrove reforestation and wetland restoration, as core components of flood mitigation.
No longer into FMRs
It must also consult or coordinate with stakeholders—including experts from Project Noah and the UP Institute of Civil Engineering—for data-based insights on hydrology, climate modeling and risk assessment.
Signaling another major policy shift, the GAB delegates the primary responsibility over farm-to-market road (FMR) projects from the DPWH to the Department of Agriculture (DA).
With the DA now the primary implementer of FMRs, it may only enter into a memorandum of agreement with the DPWH if necessary.
The new provisions were introduced to help avert a repeat of past DPWH spending programs allegedly abused by lawmakers and contractors to draw kickbacks from substandard or nonexistent projects.
Specter of ‘allocables’
Still, the specter of the so-called allocables, introduced by the late Public Works Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral, still hangs over the agency going into 2026. Too late to be removed when Dizon took over in September, the complicated—and allegedly arbitrary—system of allocating infrastructure funds per legislative district remains in place in the budget.
The Right to Know, Right Now (R2KRN) coalition and the People’s Budget Coalition have called on Dizon and Congress to fully disclose the details of the allocables system.
They demanded the release of official project listings classifying “allocables” and “non-allocables” among infrastructure projects and a further clarification on how these terms are used at the DPWH.
They noted that Dizon himself had confirmed that this system was still used in official planning and budget negotiations, despite having no formal definition in law.
“Regardless of original intent, documents containing allocables are official records,” they said in a statement. “To the extent that allocables and non-allocables appear in consolidated project lists, planning matrices, budget submissions, internal memoranda, or digital files and databases, they fall squarely within the scope of public records subject to disclosure.”
The groups noted that allocables had become an informal budgeting mechanism in the DPWH since 2022, “normalized features of the budget process… insulated from scrutiny.”
