Senator Win Gatchalian urged the Department of Economic Planning and Development (DepDev) to increase the number of projects approved by the agency’s regional development councils (RDCs) to avoid budget “insertions” and ensure a more systematic budget process.

RDCs review projects to ensure that proposals are consistent with the country’s development goals before they are submitted for consideration at the national level and included in the national expenditure program (NEP), which is the executive department’s spending plan.

“Ang nangyayari kasi, shino-shortcut ang proseso, and this is where the problem comes in because some of those projects do not have feasibility studies and detailed engineering designs,” Gatchalian said, pointing out that instead of projects being endorsed to the NEP by RDCs before finally going through the General Appropriations Act or GAA, projects are directly endorsed to the GAA.

According to Gatchalian, a higher approval rate for RDC-endorsed projects would encourage local government units to follow the established process. 

DevDep Secretary Arsenio Balisacan noted that only about a third of the projects in the NEP are RDC-approved.  “If we can improve the batting average, people will be encouraged to go through the process,” Gatchalian added.