By Benjamin Cuaresma
MANILA, Philippines — The congressional district once held by Paolo “Pulong” Duterte as the biggest beneficiary of Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) infrastructure spending has been overtaken by the district of former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, according to newly obtained government budget records.
The 1st District of Leyte, represented by Romualdez during the period, received approximately P57 billion in DPWH infrastructure funding from 2023 to 2025, surpassing the P51 billion secured by Davao City’s 1st District from 2020 to 2022, when Duterte was its representative.
The figures were contained in DPWH budget data obtained by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), which reported that the Leyte district became the country’s biggest recipient during the first three years of the Marcos administration.
The shift is significant because Duterte’s district had previously been described in congressional proceedings as having received the largest amount ever allocated to a single legislative district.
But the record has now been eclipsed.
Even more striking, Leyte’s 1st District remained the biggest recipient of DPWH funding in the 2026 national budget, with about P6 billion, despite Romualdez’s removal as House Speaker in September 2025.
The development has placed renewed focus on how billions of pesos in public works projects are distributed among congressional districts and whether political influence plays a role in determining where infrastructure funds are concentrated.
Budget documents show that Romualdez’s district originally stood to receive nearly P10 billion under the resubmitted 2026 National Expenditure Program. Congress subsequently cut more than P4 billion from the proposed allocation—the largest reduction among legislative districts—but Leyte 1st still emerged as the top DPWH recipient in the final budget.
The figures come amid continuing scrutiny of DPWH spending following the massive controversy over alleged irregularities in flood-control and other infrastructure projects.
Romualdez has faced allegations in connection with the broader controversy, although the funding figures themselves do not establish that the former Speaker committed wrongdoing or that any project allocation was illegal.
The concentration of infrastructure funds in Leyte also comes against the backdrop of the DPWH’s controversial “allocable” system, under which congressional districts were assigned funding ceilings for projects.
Earlier investigations found that Romualdez was among the lawmakers whose districts received some of the largest shares of these allocations during the Marcos administration.
The latest figures, however, cover broader DPWH infrastructure spending and show that Leyte’s 1st District received far more than the district-level allocations identified under the allocable system alone.
The contrast with the Duterte administration is stark.
From 2020 to 2022, Davao City’s 1st District received P51 billion in infrastructure spending under Paolo Duterte. Three years later, Leyte’s 1st District had moved ahead with P57 billion.
And despite the change in House leadership, Leyte remained at the top in 2026.
The figures are likely to fuel further questions over the fairness, transparency and criteria used in distributing public works funds—particularly at a time when the government is under intense pressure to demonstrate that infrastructure spending is based on public need rather than political leverage.
ia/xf
