Screen grabbed from Senate of the Philippines/ YouTube
After two hours of deliberations on the first day of bicameral talks on the 2026 national budget, lawmakers agreed to allocate P33 billion for farm-to-market roads.
Senators and House members engaged in extended discussions over the scale and safeguards of the funding amid lingering concerns about past irregularities.
The House pushed for the higher amount, with lawmakers seeking funds for the repair, rehabilitation, and construction of farm-to-market roads in key production areas nationwide.
House appropriations committee chair Mika Suansing moved to adopt P33.009 billion, citing safeguards such as public-private partnerships by local governments and citizens’ participatory audits.
Suansing said the agreed safeguards would ensure proper implementation of the projects and address transparency issues.
Senators Pia Cayetano, Loren Legarda, and Erwin Tulfo entered standing reservations on the approved amount, with Cayetano saying she needed more time to study the matter.
Legarda said farm-to-market roads are necessary but stressed that implementation should be based on objective needs like population and land area, not congressional districts.
Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan said lawmakers had agreed that projects must be consistent with the Department of Agriculture’s master plan for the farm-to-market road network.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said project coordinates could only be produced if the roads were included in the DA master plan, underscoring the need for prior inclusion.
Funding for farm-to-market roads rose from P16 billion in the National Expenditure Program to P32.6 billion in the House-approved budget, as the issue resurfaced following Senate findings that over P10 billion worth of similar projects in 2023 and 2024 were extremely overpriced.
