AT LEAST 24 lawmakers at the House of Representatives received “zero” appropriation for their infrastructure projects in the P3.8-trillion national budget for 2018 for being critical of President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, a legislator from the opposition said on Wednesday. “Zero allocations are projected to punish and silence opposition legislators even as it is their constituencies who are deprived of the benefits of infrastructure development,” Lagman said in a statement. Lagman said the scrapped budget was for infrastructure intended for congressional districts under the 2018 National Infrastructure Program of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) of the “Build, Build, Build” program of the administration and not for “pet projects”. What is worse is that highways and bridges for completion in 2018 would be left hanging and unfinished,” Lagman said. Lagman said that majority of the infrastructure projects have been bidded out pursuant to government’s advance bidding schedule pending approval of the 2018 budget.

Source: Manila Times December 20, 2017 04:41 UTC