MANILA: After a two-hour deliberation during the first day of the bicameral conference committee meeting on the disagreeing provisions of the 2026 budget, lawmakers have decided to fund farm-to-market roads a whopping P33 billion.
Senators and congressmen found themselves in an elaborate discussion regarding the funding of farm-to-market roads for 2026.
Congressmen want P32 billion funding for the repair, rehabilitation, and construction of farm-to-market roads in key areas of the Philippines.
“We’ve put in necessary safeguards to ensure that the farm-to-market roads for next year will be implemented well, and with that, I once again put forth the motion to adopt the amount for repair, rehabilitation and construction of farm-to-road projects in designated key production areas to be P33,009,763 billion,” said House appropriations committee chairman Mika Suansing.
The safeguards she was referring to include, but are not limited to, local government units implementing public-private partnerships as well as citizens’ participatory audit in the implementation of farm-to-market road projects.
“With the safeguards that came out of our discussions, definitely we’ll be able to implement the farm to market roads in a good way,” she added.
Senators Pia Cayetano, Loren Legarda, and Erwin Tulfo, however, aired their standing reservation on the approved funding.
Cayetano, for her part, said she wants to study the matter further.
Legarda echoed Cayetano’s remarks, maintaining her belief that farm-to-market roads are needed but must not be distributed according to congressional districts.
She said it must be distributed or implemented according to the needs of the area based on population, land area, and others.
Sen Kiko Pangilinan, head of the Senate panel on agriculture, said lawmakers have previously agreed that the implementation of farm-to-market projects should be consistent with the masterplan of the Department of Agriculture on farm-to-market road network.
“So it has to be within and consistent with that,” said Pangilinan.
At this point, Sen Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate contingent for the bicameral conference committee, said the coordinates cannot be produced if farm-to-market roads are not in the masterplan.
This, said Gatchalian, solely means that it has to be in the masterplan first before coordinates for the projects are produced.
At the National Expenditure Programme level, the funding for farm-to-market roads was only at P16 billion but it doubled in the House-approved GAB with an amount of P32.6 billion.
Now, the bicam conferees agreed to a funding of P33 billion.
The farm-to-market roads previously took the centre stage of Senate hearings after Gatchalian revealed that over P10 billion worth of farm-to-market road programmes under the 2023 and 2024 national budgets have been “extremely overpriced.”
One project, for example, cost 23 times more than the standard price set by the DPWH while others saw markups of up to 70 per cent, further bloating the project cost. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
