That extra step: How TV Patrol verified Rep. Paolo Duterte’s questionable PHP51-billion infrastructure budget

CHEERS TO ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol for its report that confirmed that Davao City 1^st District Representative Paolo Duterte received a total of PHP51 billion for infrastructure projects from 2020 to 2022, when his father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, was still in office.

On January 9, Rep. Duterte announced on his Facebook page that his district only received a “measly” PHP500 million. He complained in the same post that the House was “ganging up” on them because he spoke against charter change.

“I will not starve to death if you take my budget away,” Duterte said in his post. “Ang kawawa is yung mga Dabawenyos na bumoto kay PBBM.” (The victims here are the Davaoeños who voted for PBBM [President Bongbong Marcos].)

Henry Omaga-Diaz’s report on January 22 opened with Paolo Duterte’s complaint about his budget cutdown for 2024. Probing the complaint, he checked with Rep. Elizaldy Co (Ako Bicol Party-list) and the chairperson of the House Appropriations Committee, who said the committee discovered that Duterte received “unprecedented” amounts for infrastructure projects in a period of two years. The committee decreased his allocation for 2024 to balance the distribution equally among the different districts. 

In numbers

Omaga-Diaz cited numbers from the committee, which he also verified with the records of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

Rodrigo Duterte’s eldest of two sons, Paolo, was first elected as a representative in 2019 and received PHP13.7 billion for infrastructure from the 2020 budget. This was followed by PHP25 billion in 2021 and PHP13 billion in 2022, for a total of PHP51 billion. 

Omaga-Diaz also cited Co, pointing out that the budget allocation received by Duterte’s district was the highest ever received by any legislative district in history. Allocations for these have ranged from PHP500 million to PHP4 billion.

Necessary verification

GMA News Online and Manila Bulletin earlier reported that the House committee was already looking into these reports of over-allocation. Bulletin was tentative — its headline read, “House leader ‘99%’ sure that Cong Duterte’s district got P51B in unprogrammed funds” – and made no follow-up reports to confirm. 

Omaga-Diaz, on the other hand, took the initiative to verify with DPWH that Rep. Duterte’s district indeed received the amounts for infrastructure. Not only did Omaga-Diaz confirm the information with Co but he also went on to check whether DPWH also had information about the amount. He went even further to highlight the impact of such an unequal distribution of funds. He included in his report Assistant Secretary Mary Anne dela Vega of the Department of Budget and Management, saying that over-allocation to one district would necessarily mean less amounts for other districts. 

“When a certain project gets an increase, it means that in certain parts of the National Expenditure Program, there are projects which were reduced,” dela Vega said. “We cannot increase the budget submitted by the president.”

The few extra steps taken by Omaga-Diaz made a difference. The report showed how a bit more information helps people understand the real problem. A journalist at work gave the real picture and exposed the sense of entitlement politicians tend to develop while in power. The huge amount given to Davao City is only one example of what journalists failed to report when Rodrigo Duterte was president.