By Justine Irish DP. Tabile, Senior Reporter
The Department of Budget and Management plans to further reduce unprogrammed appropriations in future national budgets as it seeks to tighten spending discipline, although eliminating the allocation will depend on the government’s fiscal space and project pipeline.
Acting Budget Secretary Kim Robert C. de Leon said the government could eventually bring unprogrammed appropriations to 1% of total spending or eliminate them altogether if sufficient fiscal room allows priority projects to be funded through programmed budgets.
“We’re working towards a more disciplined budget,” told reporters at the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines Forum on Friday. “The lower, the better, but it depends on the actual purpose or nature of the project to be funded.”
The proposed 2027 unprogrammed appropriations were cut 25.8% to P111.98 billion from P150.9 billion this year. The allocation, the lowest in since 2019, is equivalent to about 1.6% of the proposed P7.2-trillion national budget.
Mr. de Leon said the DBM could reduce the allocation further if the government has enough fiscal space to include more priority expenditures in the programmed budget.
The agency also tightened the criteria for projects that can be placed under unprogrammed appropriations, he said. Projects with definite funding sources were included in the programmed budget, while those dependent on contingencies were placed under the unprogrammed allocation.
“If we can really accommodate it, if that’s the priority, we put it in the programmed appropriations,” he said.
Only four items remain under unprogrammed appropriations in the proposed 2027 budget: support for foreign-assisted projects, conversion of National Government advances to the National Housing Authority into subsidies, the Risk Management Program, and a standby provision for the partial restoration of funds previously remitted by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.
FLOOD-CONTROL PROJECTS
The DBM also said it subjected the Department of Public Works and Highways’ proposed flood-control projects to stricter screening after locally funded projects were removed from the 2026 national expenditure program.
The proposed 2027 budget includes P107.4 billion for DPWH flood-control projects.
Mr. de Leon said the DBM required the agency to submit full documentation for the projects, including budget forms, locations, geotagging and programs of work.
The requirements apply to all DPWH infrastructure projects, not just flood control, he said.
The government will prioritize completing ongoing infrastructure projects and operating and maintaining completed facilities, he said.
The restoration of funding for flood-control projects comes as economic managers seek to increase infrastructure investment after weak public construction weighed on economic growth in recent quarters.
“That is really the direction of the economic managers: to ramp up our infrastructure investment since it is one of the drivers of growth,” he said.
Department of Economy, Planning, and Development Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said large infrastructure projects reviewed by the Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) undergo feasibility studies, technical evaluation and Cabinet scrutiny.
Many of the flood-control projects previously questioned, however, were smaller projects that did not meet the threshold for ICC review, he told reporters at the forum. Most projects reviewed by the ICC are official development assistance-funded projects, he added.
ODA-funded projects are subject to feasibility studies and other requirements imposed by institutions such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency, Mr. Balisacan said.
For smaller projects outside ICC review, the government has established a monitoring dashboard that allows implementing agencies and other stakeholders to track infrastructure projects, Mr. Balisacan said.
The DBM and DEPDev are developing a common project identification system that will assign each government project a unique code and allow the public to access project information digitally.
“We are coming up with a nomenclature system so that each of the projects that the government will implement can be accessible to the public by way of a coding or numbering system,” Mr. Balisacan said.