Press Release
October 25, 2008

CHIZ SEEKS TO END INSERTION OF ROAD RIGHT OF WAY IN BUDGET

Opposition senator Chiz Escudero today said Malacanang should start reverting to the old budgeting practice of treating road right-of-way allocations as a separate item in the annual public works budget.

Citing transparency, Escudero stressed the need to "unbundle" right of way (ROW) expense from the amount meant for actual road building.

In current practice, the ROW component is cleverly inserted in the allocation for a road project, thus blurring the distinction between what is for ROW and what is for actual construction.

"Because ROW is inserted, a road project may appear on paper as having a budget of P100 million but the year will be gone with no engineering work done at all because the entire amount was used to pay for the land through which the road will pass" he said.

As a result, the senator said the road construction hence becomes a real estate transaction.

Escudero, who heads the Senate Ways and Means Committee noted that previous national budgets treated ROW expenditures as a separate and distinct activity in the budget of the Department of Public Works Highways.

In 2004 however, the ROW item disappeared in annual DPWH budget submissions, replaced by the phrase "including R(oad)ROW" which was attached to individual road projects.

In the proposed 2009 budget of the DPWH, for example, Escudero said that phrase was affixed to several projects including:

- Opening of Circumferential Road 6 in Metro Manila, with a budget of P150 million, "including RROW"

- Widening of Old Manila South Road in Laguna, P150 million, "including RROW"

- Construction of Sucat to Coastal Road Section of C-5 Extension, P187 million, "including RROW"

The dispersal of ROW funds among individual projects makes it harder to distinguish "funds used to buy land from funds used to build roads" the senator said.

Escudero wants to bring back ROW expenditures as a separate item in the DPWH budget with emphasis on individual itemization to indicate how much will be spent for what particular road.

With this scheme, he said artificial bloating of the infrastructure budget with RROW would be prevented.

He said reforms in the usage of road right-of-way allocations are needed in the light of the reports that "some owners of land affected by road projects in the 1950s and the 60s are even making belated claims."

He, however, clarified that just compensation of legitimate lot owners with valid claims should be honored and upheld.

"I would even say that they should prioritize, especially the small landowners, who were forced to give up or out of civic duty gave up their property for a song for the public good" Escudero ended.

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