The Department of Public Works and Highways admitted it submitted insufficient initial data to the Senate during deliberations on its proposed 2026 budget, an acknowledgment that came after lawmakers imposed a P45 billion cut and triggered a deadlock in the bicameral conference committee.
The admission followed questions raised by the Senate Committee on Finance over how the DPWH applied updated Construction Materials Price Data across roughly 10,000 projects nationwide. Senate Finance Committee chair Win Gatchalian said the Senate is now reviewing revised adjustment factors submitted by the agency as part of ongoing deliberations on the 2026 national budget.
“Nag-submit ang DPWH ng revised adjustment factors. Pinag-aaralan muna namin ito. Pag validated na, a-apply namin ito sa mga projects sa budget,” Gatchalian said in a Viber message to reporters.
The Senate reduced the DPWH’s proposed 2026 allocation by P45 billion after concluding that the agency’s initial reliance on Regional Adjustment Factors was inadequate for determining accurate, project-specific costs. In a letter to Gatchalian, the DPWH admitted that its initial adjustment factors “do not reflect actual project-specific impacts and should not be treated as a conclusive basis for budget cuts.”
“The DPWH acknowledges and sincerely apologizes for the insufficient initial data submitted to the Senate Committee on Finance regarding the application of the updated Construction Materials Price Data (CMPD),” the agency said in a statement.
Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon appealed to the bicameral conference committee to restore the P45 billion, arguing that the Senate’s across-the-board reductions were based on flawed assumptions that treated construction prices as uniform nationwide. He said this approach failed to account for differences in location, hauling distances, and localized market behavior.
“We believe that the way the Senate reduced the budgets for projects, roughly 10,000 projects all over the country, was not accurate,” Dizon said in an interview on ANC’s Headstart.
Dizon warned that failure to restore the cut would force the agency to scale down or delay projects, citing scenarios where planned 10-kilometer road works could be reduced to four or five kilometers to stay within the reduced allocation.
In response to the Senate’s concerns, the DPWH submitted additional project-category-based data incorporating hauling distances and localized market behavior. The agency said the revised submission provides a more realistic basis for funding and expressed readiness to provide further technical clarification.
Gatchalian said the Senate’s priority is to ensure that budget items are properly priced and that projects remain implementable. “Ang importante sa amin ay walang overpriced items at mai-implement ang mga projects para hindi maapektuhan ang ekonomiya natin,” he said.
Sen. Bam Aquino separately urged the DPWH to recompute its proposed 2026 budget and return to bicameral talks with corrected figures, stressing that the Senate would not approve the budget without recalculations based on updated CMPD data.
“Kung may issues kayo doon sa computation namin, mag-compute rin kayo. Gawin ninyo ang trabaho ninyo, i-compute ninyo ang tama at balikan ninyo kami with the right budget,” Aquino said in an interview with ANC.
Aquino said the DPWH should submit a project-by-project computation, noting the agency’s claim that the budget covers around 10,000 projects nationwide. “They should count them and tell us the real cost using the new CMPD,” he said.
He added that concerns over projects not proceeding due to reduced funding were overstated, saying there was sufficient allowance because of overpricing. “May espasyo naman iyan kasi overpriced iyan. Kahit 10 percent ang tanggalin mo, kaya pa rin iyan,” Aquino said.
To break the impasse, Aquino said the DPWH must submit its actual price computations to the bicameral conference committee, adding that lawmakers would decide on the budget once they are satisfied with the figures.
The bicameral conference committee on the proposed 2026 General Appropriations Act is expected to resume once the revised data is validated and reviewed by lawmakers.
