CAYETANO DISTRICTS TO GET P11-B WORTH OF PUBLIC WORKS FUNDS IN 2021

After securing P10-billion worth of government infrastructure projects for the current year, the two Taguig-Pateros congressional districts – represented by incumbent House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and his wife Lani – are set to receive an additional P11 billion in public works budget under the 2021 National Expenditure Program (NEP).

This was revealed by Negros Oriental Rep. Arnulfo “Arnie” Teves, as he questioned why these districts are getting a disproportionate share of the public works allocation for the entire National Capital Region (NCR), despite their relatively small population sizes.

“For 2021, Taguig-Pateros will be getting a total of P11,113,791,000 under the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), both from the Central Office of NCR and District Engineering Office (DEO),” Teves said, citing the 2021 NEP which is now under consideration by the House plenary.

“Now think about this: in terms of population, Taguig-Pateros is just 6 percent of Metro Manila. Is that amount justifiable? The numbers just don’t make sense,” he pointed out.

Based on the last available census, the combined population of Taguig and Pateros is 868,755, while the total population of Metro Manila stands at 12.9 million.

Out of the total P25 billion in public works budget for the DPWH-NCR for next year, a whopping P7.92 billion, or 38 percent, is set to be allocated for Taguig-Pateros, Teves said. “On top of this, its two congressional districts will receive an additional P3.2 billion under the DEO budget,” he added.

Based on this revelation, the allocation for Taguig-Pateros will be higher than the DPWH funds allotted for each of the other 15 regions across the country.

“Taguig-Pateros has a higher budget allocation than the P7.26 billion budget allotment for the entire Region IV-A (Calabarzon), which is bigger than every other region apart from NCR. It becomes even more glaring when compared to the P1.39 billion earmarked for the entire Region XIII (Caraga). How is that fair and equitable?” the lawmaker lamented.

Under the 2020 General Appropriations Act, Teves said Taguig-Pateros got infrastructure projects worth P10.03 billion – P7.12 billion from DPWH-NCR and P2.195 from DEO.

He also noted that before Cayetano became Speaker, Taguig-Pateros only received P2.4 billion and P3 billion in DPWH funds in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

“Things clearly changed for Taguig-Pateros when Congressman Alan Peter Cayetano became Speaker,” Teves enthused. “The question there is, who benefited from this 233% percent budget increase? And how many other districts had to suffer for it?”

During the committee deliberations on the DPWH budget last month, Teves questioned the seemingly unequal allocation for some legislative districts, including those represented by the Cayetano couple.

He further noted that while his district ranked number 8 in absorptive capacity in the entire country, it was only allocated less than P2 billion, while other districts were allotted more than P8 billion to P11 billion in infrastructure funds.