President Marcos has defended the significant increase in the proposed budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), which bloated to more than P1 trillion, saying the government must spend for the safety of the people.
Marcos stressed that public works "is still going to be one of the top recipients of the budget," citing that the government needs to build infrastructure projects to ensure the safety of communities especially in times of calamities like typhoons.
"But public works is still going to be one of the top recipients of budget because marami na tayong ginagawa (we are doing many things). We have big projects that we have to put in place. Infrastructure is important. And don't forget flood control became such a big big part of the work of the DPWH," Marcos said in an ambush interview at the Palace on Monday, Dec. 16.
"We had to build things that we never had to build before, binabantayan lang namin (we are monitoring), especially the ODA project, to make sure that our debt ratios are still relatively manageable. And we are. The debt ratio to the GDP now is lower than when we started two years ago," Marcos stressed.
He said his administration has no choice but to build key infrastructure projects.
"So it's moving in the right direction. Of course not as quickly as I would like for it to, but may bagyo tayo, may mga ganito. Wala tayong choice (there are typhoons, there are such things. We have no choice). We have to spend to support people pag nalagay sila sa alanganin (when put in danger)," the President said.
Marcos, however, made an assurance that they will look into the noticeable increase in 2025 DPWH's budget, which increased by P213 billion, from P900 billion under the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to P1.113-trillion after the bicameral conference committee meeting.
He also articulated that they are changing the way they do things in order not to cause delays on the completion of projects.
"We'll have to look into the details of that. Because there are...Here's the other thing, because some of the big ticket projects in public works that used to be put into the unappropriated funds, the reserves," he said.
"Now I asked the House wag na natin kasi ... babalikbalikan pa natin 'yan para mailagay dun sa project (because we are still going to return that to the project), which is a delay. Sana we normalize what we're doing so it's already in the GAA, not on the reserves. So we are changing the way we do things para maging mas mabilis ang takbo (to fast track the process)," he explained.
Marcos further said that they "will look into the insertion in the public works and see which ones are absolutely necessary" and check whether or not those are critical projects.
The President also said that he intends to sign the proposed national budget for 2025 before Christmas this year.
"Yes. Pilitin ko talaga (I will see to it) that we will finish it by then," he said.