The National Unity Party (NUP), the second-largest political bloc in the House of Representatives, has backed calls for lawmakers to publicly disclose their district allocations, Antipolo Rep. Ronaldo V. Puno, chairman of the 58-member party, said on Thursday.

Mr. Puno said NUP lawmakers were willing to provide civil society groups with the details of their district allocations — public funds earmarked for projects in a lawmaker's district — adding that all members of Congress have an obligation to make such information available to the public.

"Yes, we fully support that," he said during a press briefing. "In fact, today, I made a disclosure and explanation to the People's Budget Coalition on my district, specifically I have informed them that any congressman in the National Unity Party is willing to provide them with such details."

"And we think anybody in Congress has the obligation to do this," he added.

The People's Budget Coalition — the group Mr. Puno briefed on his own district — is also the body that flagged the erroneous farm-to-market road coordinates in the proposed 2027 national budget, reflecting the scrutiny role civil society groups have taken in reviewing spending proposals.

Bottom-up budgeting

The lawmaker also endorsed a bottom-up approach to budget preparation, under which project proposals would originate at the barangay (village) level, the country's smallest administrative division, before moving through local and regional development councils and eventually reaching government agencies.

"There's no reason why these things will not be documented. So, yes, we believe that if it has no documentation, it has no right to be there," Mr. Puno said.

Erroneous FMR coordinates

His remarks came amid questions over erroneous coordinates of a farm-to-market road (FMR) project — infrastructure intended to connect farming communities to markets — in the proposed 2027 national budget that appeared to place the road in the middle of the sea.

Bataan Rep. Albert S. Garcia, senior vice-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said validation showed that the coordinates flagged by the People's Budget Coalition turned out to be typographical errors.

"I asked my staff to coordinate with the People's Budget Coalition, get the project, and validate it. So, it came out that it was a typo," Mr. Garcia said.

He noted that the House-approved version of the 2027 budget contains a special provision allowing government agencies to correct typographical errors and misspelled project details, so that legitimate projects are not excluded.

While acknowledging that such errors should not have occurred in the first place, he said the government should find ways to correct them rather than automatically abandon the affected projects.

"Of course, I'm not defending those who encoded it, whether it's the agency, the committee, or the House. Of course, it should be perfect, but human error happens and we can't do anything about that," he said in Filipino. "So, hopefully, we can rectify it so we can implement the project and ensure those special provisions don't go to waste."

Mr. Garcia said the retention of the provision in the Senate version would depend on the succeeding deliberations and the collective decision of lawmakers. Because the House and Senate each pass their own version of the annual budget and reconcile any differences before adoption, the provision's final treatment will only become clear as those deliberations proceed.

Originally reported by Pexcel John Bacon for BusinessWorld.