The Senate and the House of Representatives have agreed to allocate P33 billion for farm-to-market roads during the 2026 bicameral conference committee deliberations on the national budget.
After two hours of deliberation between the two chambers, senators and congressmen decided that the funding will support the repair, rehabilitation, and construction of farm-to-market roads in key areas of the Philippines.
This decision aligns with Congress’s initial proposal for a P32 billion budget for farm-to-market roads, with the condition that the implementation will be managed by the Department of Agriculture (DA) instead of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
“We’ve put in necessary safeguards to ensure that the farm-to-market roads for next year will be implemented well, and with that, I once again put forth the motion to adopt the amount for repair, rehabilitation, and construction of farm-to-road projects in designated key production areas to be P33,009,763 billion,” House appropriations committee chairman Mika Suansing said.
Senators Pia Cayetano, Loren Legarda, and Imee Marcos expressed concerns regarding accountability and the potential for overpricing with the agency transfer of farm-to-market road implementation.
Marcos referred to the assignment of these roads to the DA as “absurd,” warning that they may end up being “farm-to-pocket” roads.
Legarda stated that farm-to-market roads are essential but should not be allocated based on congressional districts.
In response, Senator Francis ‘Kiko’ Pangilinan, head of the Senate panel on agriculture, addressed these concerns by highlighting the conduct of citizen participatory audits and the validation of audit findings.
“In addition, we will put special provisions that will be additional safeguards, such as the transparency portal necessary so that at any given point, machecheck nila nasaan yung project, anong coordinates. And the Citizens participatory audit, where we will engage citizens’ groups and individuals to check and monitor these farm-to-market roads projects,” he said.
Cayetano also pledged to monitor and review the implementation of the farm-to-market road projects.
It is important to note that in the National Expenditure Program, the funding for farm-to-market roads was only P16 billion, but this amount doubled in the House-approved General Appropriations Bill (GAB) to P32.6 billion.
In October, the chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, revealed that the government lost P10.3 billion and nearly 700 kilometers of farm-to-market roads between 2023 and 2024 due to overpricing.
