No funding for new tourism roads under 2025 budget

There will be no funding for new roads leading to tourist destinations under the proposed P6.532 trillion 2025 national budget due to an apparent stalemate among the Department of Budget and Management, the Department of Public Works and Highways, and the Department of Tourism.

This was disclosed during the Senate finance subcommittee deliberations of the Department of Tourism's (DOT) proposed P3.394 billion budget for the next fiscal year on Tuesday.

During the hearing, Senator Loren Legarda directed her consultant and former director general of Senate Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring Office (LBRMO) Yolanda Dublon to report on the meeting which focused on the funding of the DOT's Tourism Road Infrastructure Program (TRIP) for 2025.

According to Dublon, the DBM wanted the tourism-related infrastructure programs to be implemented by the DPWH which is the government's main implementing agency for infrastructures.

However, Dublon said the DPWH does not want to accommodate new tourism road infrastructure projects in their budget for 2025 because it will "eat up" the budget ceiling of the agency which will affect the implementation of their core projects such as national roads.

Dublon said only P6.3 billion was given to the DOT for 2025 and these funds are just to continue the implementation of tourism road infrastructure projects that were funded by the government in the previous years.

This was confirmed by DBM Assistant Director Maria Ceciloa Abogado, who was also in the same meeting with Dublon.

"What will happen to DOT? It's unfair. There's an agency that wants to improve tourism. We need of course roads. You can't ride a habal habal going to a tourist destination and there are local roads because tourist destinations do not always have to be in poblacion or in cities. There are waterfalls there, there are rivers and lakes, there are indigenous people centers. So there must be FMRs and local roads leading to these destinations," Legarda said.

Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco decried the zero funding for TRIP under the 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP), noting that new roads including the continuing cost was funded with P15.1 billion for 2024.

"For 2025, it has now been reduced to only P6 billion for only continuing roads and no new roads," Frasco said.

Although the DOT received a letter from Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman directing them to propose to the DPWH P8 billion worth of new tourism road projects, Frasco said the "reply was that there would be no funding for new roads."

"Now we are in quandary with the DBM having directed us to propose, the DPWH having rejected the same, leaving these roads that will support our tourism destinations with no funding whatsoever," Frasco said.

Legarda raised in the hearing the need to check the status of implementation, as she said that the DBM might have seen "big" unobligated amounts in the implementation of TRIP which might have resulted in zero funding.

"I understand, but albeit I believe it is important to highlight that the funding for new roads for 2025 is completely zero," Frasco replied.

"The provenance of this situation is from our advocacy from the very beginning that tourism destinations should have accessibility if they are to have any hope of thriving and if any employment is to be given to the local communities. So we completely disagree that only major thoroughfares leading to tourist destinations should be funded," she added.

According to Frasco, for the longest time the funding for TRIPs had only been for continuing roads and it was only in 2023 that the funding for new roads had been put in.

The DOT chief also mentioned various dialogues with the DPWH which resulted in the letter of Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan "agreeing" with them that "the budget of roads should be lodged under DOT as it takes precedence from so many other agencies including DepEd, DA, DOH and the like all of whom have the primary say on where their projects that feed their mandate should be put in based on data and yet it is the DPWH that implements."

Legarda is of the same view, noting that the Department of Agriculture has farm-to-market road projects and the Department of Education has their school building projects which were being implemented by the DPWH.

This prompted her to ask, "Are they discriminating against DOT?"

Ending the discussion, Legarda directed the representatives from DOT, DBM and her office to check the implementation of the tourism road infrastructure projects in the previous years.

Legarda also mentioned the possible creation of a special provision in DOT's budget that will allow them to receive the funding for TRIP, but with the DPWH as its implementer. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News