Government to beef up infrastructure spending to P1.56 trillion in 2026

MANILA, Philippines — The national government is beefing up its infrastructure spending next year by three percent, based on Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing for fiscal year 2026.

The budget document showed that the infrastructure program disbursements for next year will be at P1.56 trillion, 3.2 percent higher than this year’s P1.51 trillion, as approved by the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee.

Next year’s infrastructure spending is equivalent to 5.1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

This is higher than the P1.22-trillion allocation for the education sector, which is equivalent to four percent of GDP.

Budget Assistant Secretary Romeo Balanquit said infrastructure projects include local government share in the national tax allotment (NTA).

Apart from that, Budget Undersecretary Rolando Toledo said private companies implement infrastructure projects.

“Part of that P1.56 trillion or five to six percent of GDP for infrastructure are full of government projects, with government agencies, government owned and controlled corporations and local government units,” Toledo said.

The Supreme Court, through its Mandanas ruling that took effect in 2022, ordered that the NTA share of local government units must be at 40 percent of all national taxes.

Breaking down the infrastructure program, national government infrastructure will decrease by one percent to P1.22 trillion next year from this year’s P1.24 trillion.

Infrastructure subsidy will jump by 53.7 percent to P62.3 billion from P40.5 billion, while equity will more than double to P2.6 billion from P1 billion.

The budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is lower in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) in comparison to its allocation in the 2025 General Appropriations Act.

This year, DPWH will face a 12-percent budget cut in the administration’s budget to P881.3 billion next year from this year’s appropriated of over P1 trillion budget.

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman attributed the proposed lower budget of the DPWH to the already “high” allocation for the current year, noting that several projects still need to be completed before additional funding could be provided.

The Department of Transportation, in turn, received a higher budget proposal of P197.3 billion for 2026, a 126-percent jump from P87.2 billion for 2025.