DAVAO City First District Representative Paolo “Pulong” Duterte said his district has not received any national government budget since 2022.
“2022 paman ko walay budget wala man koy labot, sama sa akoang gisulti, kami mga Dabawenyo dili mi gutumon kung dili mi suportahan sa national government (Back in 2022, I did not have a budget and I had nothing to do with it. As I have said, we Dabawenyos will not go hungry even if we are not supported by the national government),” Duterte said during a live interview on January 13 at The Hague, Netherlands.
He said that his district would not perish without national support and alleged an incident in which he was offered P5 billion if President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. would receive P40 million in cash.
Duterte said the situation has been complicated by opposition lawmakers “twisting the facts” and expecting their directives to be followed. Despite the challenges, he said he remains “okay,” adding that the same resilience applies to other Bisaya people.
Allocables in national budget
A Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) report shows that in the 2025 General Appropriations Act, Duterte and allied lawmakers Isidro Ungab, Pantaleon Alvarez, and Khymer Olaso had no allocables. Meanwhile, Ilocos Norte 1st District Rep. Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos and Leyte 1st District Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez received the largest allocations from 2023 to 2025, totaling P1.2 trillion.
Former DPWH Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral defined allocables as the “ceiling budget” of the engineering office based on a “parametric formula.” DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo said last November that lawmakers’ DPWH pork barrel allocations are included in the National Expenditure Program.
President Marcos signed the 2026 General Appropriations Act on January 5, authorizing a P6.793 trillion national budget. Senator Loren Legarda noted last November that P400 billion in allocables has been provided annually for the past three years, with P100 billion included in the 2026 DPWH budget.
Previous budget woes
In January 2024, Duterte said about P2 billion had been diverted from the National Expenditure Program budget for Davao City’s first district, leaving only P500 million for residents. He emphasized the cut did not affect him personally, following his opposition to a people’s initiative for charter change.
Duterte is also involved in a House inquiry into a P51-billion infrastructure program in Davao City, saying the city has “nothing to hide” and inviting investigators to review records and inspect completed projects.
The inquiry stems from a House Infrastructure Committee hearing on questionable flood-control projects nationwide. DPWH Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral confirmed that ₱51 billion worth of infrastructure projects were allocated to Davao City’s first district during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s term from 2020 to 2022. RGP