“IT’S about time the government realigned the billions worth of flood control projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to other sectors that need it most.”

This was the statement of Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano in response to the President’s announcement that there will be zero flood control projects under the 2026 national budget.

“It’s high time that we make the hard decisions and put our money where our mouth is. We have to be radical with the 2026 national budget,” Cayetano said.

A day earlier, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that the allocation for flood control projects under the National Expenditure Program will be rechanneled to other departments such as health and education.

Weeks before, on the plenary floor, Cayetano proposed making radical budgetary decisions, including addressing the 165,000-classroom shortage through the DPWH budget.

“The DPWH budget is P1 trillion. Do you want to end the lack of classrooms in a year? If each classroom costs P1 million, that’s only P165 billion—almost half or two-thirds of the DPWH budget,” Cayetano said.

The Minority Leader also raised the same idea in November 2024 during a Senate hearing on Higher, Technical, and Vocational Education, which he chaired in the 19th Congress.

“For the last two years, more or less one trillion ang budget ng DPWH, P350 billion doon ay anti-flood, pero ganoon pa rin ang flood natin,” Cayetano said on November 19, 2024, criticizing the agency’s failed anti-flood projects.

“Can you imagine if we remove P100 billion from DPWH, double the budget of SUCs (state universities and colleges), baka ma-flood tayo ng research at estudyante rather than bahang baha,” he added.

Cayetano has also criticized DPWH’s leadership and use of funds, pointing to issues such as inaction on double appropriations in its yearly budgets and wastage of public funds through the Engineering and Administrative Overhead fund.

In 2022, Cayetano called out DPWH’s 2023 budget when the agency allocated a third of its total budget to flood control and maintenance instead of building new infrastructure.