Infra outlay for 2025 still biased for road networks - think tank

Infrastructure outlay for next year remains biased for road networks, which could worsen the already severe traffic congestion in the capital and other major cities due to more road repairs and construction.

- LOUISE MAUREEN SIMEON

Based on the latest budget report of the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department (CPBRD) of the House of Representatives, a heavy bias on road networks will linger for 2025, as it has been the case the past 10 years.

Under the 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP), infrastructure budget stood at P1.507 trillion, slightly lower than this year’s allocation of P1.51 trillion.

Of the amount, almost 65 percent or P977.83 billion will be spent on hard infrastructure including road networks, flood control and railway systems.

“A peek into the distribution of the infrastructure outlays from 2016 to 2025 shows that there is bias in favor of road networks, which account for 36 percent of the entire public infrastructure outlay, on average, in the last 10 years,” CPBRD said.