MANILA – The
House of Representatives’ appropriations committee has approved the P534.3
billion Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) proposed budget for
next year.
Lawmakers took turns in scrutinizing DPWH secretary Mark Villar on his office
budget next year during the hearing that was presided by committee chair Rep.
Isidro Ungab (3rd District, Davao City) on Tuesday.
Villar presented during the three-hour hearing the DPWH strategic
infrastructure programs and policies to be supported by its 2020 budget, based
on the agency’s National Expenditure Program (NEP).
“The DPWH is mandated to undertake the planning of infrastructure projects such
as national roads and bridges, flood control, water resources projects and
other public works and to also design, construct, and maintain national roads
and bridges, and major flood control systems,” Villar said.
Villar also presented the Strategic Road Map of the DPWH and the three major
outcomes that they hope to accomplish through their 2020 budget namely:
1) Reduction of travel time which will be achieved through increased road network capacity and the construction of new roads and bridges for seamless transport system
2) Improvement of road quality and safety
3) Meeting the international road safety standards with highest quality
4) Provision of
engineering solutions to road safety concerns
He added that the DPWH flood control has completed 4,536 flood mitigation
structures from July 2016 to May 2019, while some 9,845 kilometers of roads
were constructed, maintained, widened, upgraded and rehabilitated, 2,709
bridges constructed, widened, upgraded, rehabilitated and strengthened in the
same period.
House speaker Alan Peter Cayetano asked Villar if there is any senator or
congressman who “parked” the DPWH’s budget to which the latter deny as per the
instruction of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“In fact, we have implemented already a software system for the whole DPWH and
this is the first of its kind. We monitor projects through system applications
called the CMPA (Contract Management Procedures and Application System) that
helps us,” said Villar.
“One of the accomplishments of this system is that we blacklisted almost around
18 contractors. This has been the highest (that) it has ever been implemented
in the department. At the same time, we track all projects via geotagging. In
other words, the progress of every project will be confirmed by a satellite
confirmatory photography,” he added.
Villar also said that the DPWH has endeavored to ensure that progress is evenly
distributed. He said it was balanced based on needs and that most of the big
ticket projects are in the provincial areas./PN
