Gatchalian says unverifiable line items will not get ‘a single peso’ as Malacañang insists President Marcos will keep his hands off Congress’ budget work
MANILA – The Senate will strip 295 Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) projects worth P8.836 billion from the proposed P7.2-trillion national budget for 2027 because they lack supporting documents, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian announced on Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
Gatchalian said the projects were tagged as “non-compliant” in the DPWH’s own evaluation, which former DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon relayed to the Senate in a letter.
“The Senate is committed unequivocally in weeding out unsubstantiated line items, including those lacking concrete and verifiable technical support, to ensure that every item in the final version is shovel-ready. Unverifiable line items will not receive a single peso of public funding,” Gatchalian said.
“Malinaw ang mandato ng Senado, kung walang kaukulang dokumento, walang pondo,” he added, stressing that every peso counts at a time when the economy is growing slowly.
The cut follows the red flags Gatchalian raised during the DPWH budget hearing on September 25. At the time, he said 7,107 of the 11,395 infrastructure projects his office reviewed, or more than 62 percent, had at least one major budgetary red flag. These included projects without station numbers or geographic coordinates, lump-sum items, overlapping or fragmented projects, and conflicting descriptions of work.
The Senate had earlier set November 3 as the deadline for the DPWH to submit complete papers for projects in the budget, warning that those without feasibility studies, programs of work and other requirements would be removed. A Senate review found that the number of public works projects grew from 11,420 in the executive’s original proposal to 16,244 in the House-approved version. The chamber had already vowed to strip unsupported House insertions from the spending bill.
Meanwhile, Senate finance committee chairman JV Ejercito, who has vowed to restore the P130-billion cut from foreign-assisted projects, said the administration’s legacy projects would not be touched. Civil society groups have also been invited to observe the bicameral conference talks.
Palace: Marcos won’t meddle
On the same day, Malacañang said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. would not intervene in how Congress handles the budget, even as watchdogs flagged questionable insertions in the House version.
“Ang pangulo ay hindi makikialam sa trabaho ng Kongreso,” Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said at a briefing. She argued that the President would be called a dictator if he stepped in, and indifferent if he did not.
Castro, however, said Marcos would not allow amendments without proper documents, descriptions and actual projects. “Alam naman natin na kapag kinakailangan ng Pangulo na mag-veto, nagbi-veto siya,” she said.
Castro also said the Office of the Solicitor General was set to file on Wednesday, November 4, a motion for reconsideration on the Supreme Court ruling that declared the 2024 and 2025 national budgets unconstitutional.