DA admits submitting wrong coordinates for 8 proposed 2027 farm-to-market roads

Make this your preferred source to get more updates from this publisher on Google.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Wednesday admitted that eight farm-to-market road (FMR) projects included in its proposed 2027 budget contained incorrect coordinates due to supposed "encoding and geotagging errors."

DA Assistant Secretary for Operations U-Nichols Manalo disclosed this during a hearing of the House agriculture and food committee on the government's response to El Niño.

Manalo said the eight projects were among the 1,669 FMR projects nationwide included in the DA's proposed budget under the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

“We’d like to inform the committee that the 1,669 farm-to-market road projects are within the NEP (National Expenditure Program) [proposed to the House]. Hindi iyon dun sa sinasabi nating inserted farm-to-market road projects,” Manalo said.

(These 1,669 FMR projects were not among those inserted by lawmakers.)

Manalo made the clarification after budget watchdog People’s Budget Coalition flagged provisions in the proposed 2027 national budget, which the House had approved on third and final reading, over allegedly incorrect project coordinates.

The group earlier cited hundreds of farm-to-market road (FMR) projects, questioning their locations and the transparency of the project allocations.

The group reported that some projects had coordinates pointing to bodies of water, including the Celebes Sea and the Philippine Rise.

Manalo attributed the errors in the eight FMR projects to “encoding and geotagging errors.”

Camarines Sur 4th District Rep. Arnie Fuentebella urged the DA to acknowledge and correct the errors while the proposed national budget was still under deliberation in the Senate.

“I think you can still correct it,” Fuentebella said.

“We appreciate you acknowledging your mistake,” he added.— MCG, GMA News

Follow GMA News Online on Facebook for real-time news and developments in the Philippines and around the world.