DPWH

The release pace trails 2025's rate for the same period, with the Department of Agriculture down nearly 28 percentage points from a year ago even as DPWH — the agency at the center of the flood-control corruption scandal — hits a near-perfect 99.5%.

Speaker Dy pledges to "scrutinize every centavo" as lawmakers push the ₱644-billion DPWH infrastructure budget — including a reduced ₱107.4-billion flood-control allocation — toward an Oct. 9 third-reading target.

The Department of Public Works and Highways and the Philippine Reclamation Authority issued a cease-and-desist order against reclamation activity in Laguna de Bay in Taguig, after Sen. Panfilo Lacson said ₱3.713 billion had already been spent on projects in the area without proper permits.

Malacañang says President Marcos never authorized the ₱24-billion allocation ex-DPWH chief Manuel Bonoan described to the Sandiganbayan, even as Senate finance committee chairman JV Ejercito acknowledged senators seek project funding through informal channels and pledged more open budget negotiations in 2027.

Manuel Bonoan told the Sandiganbayan every senator received at least ₱500 million — and committee chairs up to ₱1 billion — from a DPWH-administered fund that channeled ₱21 billion in FY 2025 alone, an allegation three successive Senate presidents have each denied knowledge of.

The senator who led the Blue Ribbon Committee's flood-control corruption inquiry says 15 years of DPWH flood management funding failed to prevent Aug. 17 flash floods that dumped 201.7 mm of rain on Metro Manila in five hours and left at least 27 dead nationwide.

The House appropriations committee began a 53-day review of the proposed 2027 national budget with a Development Budget Coordination Committee briefing, as leadership pledges transparency and the Senate faces questions over an alleged per-senator "leadership fund" in the DPWH budget raised in Sandiganbayan testimony.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla says a quarter of the six-year Cebu flood-control allocation went to a single contractor and another quarter to one congressional district, as he orders lifestyle checks on DPWH engineers and a province-wide review of whether projects were ghost, substandard, or simply mis-designed.

Government economists say a 32.4% collapse in public construction — tied to agencies' reluctance to approve projects after the flood-control corruption scandal — cost the economy roughly a percentage point of growth in the second quarter, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 66%, its highest since 2004.

A 15-page motion filed August 5 argues the anti-graft court's Third Division misread the evidence when it freed the former senator on bail in a Bulacan flood-control malversation case, days after the division's own chairperson dissented from the ruling.