MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is not asking for the restoration of the P255 billion that it slashed from its proposed 2026 national budget but the return of P54 billion that the Senate cut from the P624.48 billion approved in the version of the House of Representatives. The DPWH inititaive to slash its budget was in response to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s order to scrap funding for flood control projects for 2026 to cleanse the national budget of insertions and other anomalous line items. The President, before this, had directed a sweeping review of the DPWH's original proposed P881 billion budget to ensure transparency and the proper use of funds following the discovery of ghost, substandard and duplicate flood control projects worth billions of pesos. Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon on Monday said that the DPWH slashed its 2026 proposed budget by P255 billion  orfrom P881 billion to P625 billion following a line-by-line review to ensure that it is accurate, transparent, and devoid of any unneeded insertions that was ot part of the National Expenditure Program (NEP). The Senate, during plenary deliberations last week, reduced the DPWH budget to P570.48 billion, which is P54 billion lower than the P624.48 billion in the House version. Dizon said that the DPWH P625-billion budget for 2026 was its lowest since 2020, which they achieved by removing all flood control undertakings without foreign funding assistance, duplicate or completed projects, as well as rock-netting and cat’s eye jobs. Dizon, in a letter to Sen. Sherwin Garchalian, chairman of the Committee on Finance, requested the restoration of the P54 billion which was deducted from the projects in the 2026 DPWH proposed budget as a result of the reductions in the Construction Materials Price Data (CMPD). Dizon said the estimated DPWH P60 billion generated savings from the CMPD and applied by the Senate Committee on Finance were derived from the adjustments and were estimates, thus,the need for a structured, step-by-step engineering process before any cost adjustment could be finalized or reflected in the budget. Dizon said that if such a process was not followed, it would result in the implementation of DPWH projects based on inaccurate costing and would result in massive underspending that would have dire consequences on the country’s infrastructure and macroeconomic growth The DPWH chief added that it would also result in possible misalignment of budget laws, procurement issues, as well as administrative and audit vulnerabilities. "In this light, we are respectfully requesting that the amounts deducted from the projects in the 2026 DPWH budget be returned, and that the DPWH, in the exercise of its executive functions, be allowed to update the project costs using the updated CMPD in order to ensure its proper execution," added Dizon.