Not all of the funds allocated for National Expenditure Program projects are actually spent or properly spent.
If the Filipino people were asked the question “Which government document do you find the most untrustworthy?”, the vast majority of them would probably answer “The General Appropriations Act”. The General Appropriations Act – GAA for short – for 2026 was submitted by the Executive Department to Congress shortly after President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s July 28 delivery of his State of the Nation Address (SONA), in compliance with the Constitution.
This is much to be lamented because the GAA is, next to the Constitution, the most important document that governs and guides the life of the Republic of the Philippines and the heart of the GAA is the National Expenditure Program (NEP). All expenditures for goods and services determined by the Executive Department to be of greatest importance for the progress and welfare of the Filipino people are encompassed by the NEP. Health care, education, agriculture, national defense, public works, social welfare, the environment, debt service—expenditures for these and other major national concerns are programmed in the NEP.
Considering the ordinary signification of the word’ expenditures’, it is the expectation of the Filipino people that the funds allocated for NEP projects will be spent on those project. However, the events that have taken place since the start of the year’s typhoon season – the typhoons, the enormous countrywide loss of lives and property, on account of wide-scale flooding, President Marco’s SONA and the subsequent Congressional hearings.
Actual spending of NEP funds on palpable projects – that’s what NEP in all about. But the Congressional hearings have uncovered the outrageous facts (1) that many flood control projects were awarded by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to entities that formed part of a 15-company syndicate, (2) that many companies that were awarded enormous flood control projects were grossly undercapitalized, (3) that many flood control projects were implemented in a below-specifications manner, (4) that many flood control projects, reported all the way to the top as completed, have remained uncompleted and, worst of all, (5) that many flood control projects reported as completed are ghost, i.e., non-existent project.
Two words have stood out in the public discussions and the hearings that Congress has been conducting: corruption and collusions Corruption is rampant in the project – approval and project – implementation phases of the flood control construction industry. And there has been collusion between the so-called contractors all the way up from barangay officials to the office of the DPWH head.
In effect, not all of the funds allocated for National Expenditure Program projects are actually spent or properly spent. That being the case, we should perhaps rename the program the National Real Expenditure Program (NREP).
(llagasjessa@yahoo.com)
