'DA, DPWH reports disprove overpriced FMRs in Leyte'

Public works and agriculture reports have declared as aboveboard the farm-to-market road projects in the Leyte district represented by former speaker Martin Romualdez, his camp said, contrary to claims by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian that the FMRs were overpriced and abnormally large in number.

- DELON PORCALLA

In a detailed statement to The STAR, the office of the Leyte first district congressman maintained there was nothing irregular about the FMR projects in his district and hometown in Tacloban City, as attested to by the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Department of Agriculture.

Romualdez stressed that the DPWH and the DA “confirmed that the Barangay 93 Bagacay FMR and Barangay San Roque FMR (Phase 2) were validated, cost-evaluated and approved under the DA’s Farm-to-Market Road Development Program.”

This was after a “joint review and field inspection conducted by both DPWH and DA engineers,” he said.

“No funds have been disbursed and no works have begun pending resolution of the right-of-way issue,” Romualdez quoted the DPWH report as stating, stressing that the project remains valid and within standard FMR cost parameters validated by DA engineers in Region 8 (Eastern Visayas).

Romualdez also pointed out that the San Roque FMR Phase 2, worth P99.5 million, is “92 percent complete as of September 2025.”

In denying that the local infrastructure projects were "overpriced and excluded from the DA's Master Plan," the former leader of the House of Representatives emphasized that the P25-million Bagacay FMR was "designed to improve access for farmers and residents in the upland barangay." "The project has not started due to unresolved right-of-way issues involving the Department of HealthPhilippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care and the Manobo tribe, which owns adjacent land," he said, quoting a report of the agency.

"The additional slope protection and drainage structures were essential to prevent erosion and ensure long-term road stability," the report signed by project engineer John Nichole Bertulfo noted.