SEN. Sherwin Gatchalian has assailed ‘billions of undetailed’ National Irrigation Administration funds amid the widening investigation into ghost projects, and pressed authorities to immediately stop the practice.
Gatchalian prodded the relevant agencies to immediately revert to detailed, itemized budgeting for its projects to ensure strict alignment with its master plan, as he flagged billions of pesos allocated without sufficient transparency.
As Senate Finance chairperson, Gatchalian noted that while irrigation systems were itemized in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2022 and 2023, they were lumped into large sums in the 2024 and 2025 budgets.
‘The more details we have, the better for transparency,’ Gatchalian said during a hearing on NIA’s budget proposal for 2026.
In the 2024 budget, national and communal irrigation systems were lumped into one item amounting to P22.2 billion and P6.7 billion, respectively. The same practice was done in 2025, with allocations of P8.2 billion and P3.8 billion.
Earlier, Gatchalian also flagged a massive budget insertion under NIA’s Establishment of Pump Irrigation Projects (EPIP) in 2024, which rose from P1.72 billion in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to P18.31 billion in the House-approved General Appropriations Bill (GAB), and finally to P18.61 billion in the 2024 GAA.
NIA said the increase aimed to address the expected El Niño-induced dry spell that year.