Senator Sherwin Gatchalian urged the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) to immediately include detailed allocations for its projects in the proposed 2026 budget to ensure alignment with the agency’s master plan and promote transparency in spending.
As chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, Gatchalian flagged what he described as a lack of transparency in how billions of pesos in irrigation funds were listed, noting that several items appeared to be lumped together in recent budgets.
He pointed out that while irrigation projects were itemized in the 2022 and 2023 General Appropriations Acts (GAA), they were consolidated into lump-sum entries in the 2024 and 2025 national budgets.
“Kung mas maraming detalye, mas maganda para sa transparency,” said Gatchalian during a budget hearing on NIA’s 2026 funding proposal.
In the 2024 budget, national and communal irrigation systems were grouped into a single line item, amounting to ₱22.2 billion and ₱6.7 billion, respectively. The same practice was repeated in 2025, with allocations of ₱8.2 billion and ₱3.8 billion.
Gatchalian also revealed a major budget insertion under NIA’s Establishment of Pump Irrigation Projects (EPIP), which ballooned from ₱1.72 billion in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to ₱18.31 billion in the General Appropriations Bill (GAB)—and further to ₱18.61 billion in the final 2024 GAA.
In response, NIA officials said the increased funding was intended to address the anticipated drought brought by the El Niño phenomenon that year.
Gatchalian, however, maintained that clear documentation and detailed project breakdowns are essential to prevent misuse of funds and uphold public trust in government infrastructure spending.