ASEANEWS-HEADLINE | CORRUPTION | MANILA: Farm-to-market road projects up for audit
PH Agri Chief orders audit of farm-to-market road projects | ANC
MANILA, Philippines — Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. has ordered a comprehensive audit of all farm-to-market road projects from 2021 to 2025, a move welcomed by key industry groups as a step toward accountability.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) said in a statement yesterday that it took its cue from President Marcos, with Tiu Laurel emphasizing the need for transparency, quality and tangible results.
The DA identifies and validates farm-to-market road schemes, but the projects are commissioned, bid out and constructed by the Department of Public Works and Highways.
“With what is happening now in flood control projects, I ordered an audit of all farm-to-market road projects from 2021 to 2025. If there are any issues in these agricultural road projects, I will have to report that to President Marcos,” Tiu Laurel said.
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The audit is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
“We must make sure they are done properly, that taxpayers’ money was spent to provide farmers with market access and not squandered for farm-to-pocket projects,” the agriculture chief added.
The government’s roadmap targets the construction of 131,000 kilometers of farm-to-market roads to link farms with markets.
As of July, roughly 70,000 kilometers have been completed, with about 61,000 kilometers remaining as backlog or pending validation.
During the DA’s 2026 budget hearing at the House of Representatives, Tiu Laurel urged lawmakers to pass legislation mandating a priority list for farm-to-market road projects.
He recommended reviewing the list every three years to keep it aligned with agricultural needs.To stretch resources, Tiu Laurel proposed redesigning road dimensions with narrower three-meter lanes instead of five meters and adding shoulders every 300 meters to facilitate traffic movement, allowing the roads to be built faster.
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The announcement of a massive audit by the DA has drawn cautious approval from local industry groups.
United Broiler Raisers’ Association president Elias Jose Inciong told The STAR that the audit is timely and necessary to check whether farm-to-market roads are actually helping agriculture or simply triggering land conversions.
“Based on the experience of our members, farm-to-market roads, unfortunately, initialize land conversions. You just wake up one day surrounded by subdivisions. Consequently, your farm is zoned out,” Inciong said in a Viber message.
“An audit is a good idea because it will determine which farm-to-market roads enhanced agri-fisheries or just led to land conversion, i.e. subdivisions,” he added.Support also came from the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG), which welcomed the DA audit as a step toward accountability.“We recognize and thank President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for his political will in exposing these abuses and for creating mechanisms to investigate and prosecute those responsible, regardless of rank or position,” SINAG secretary-general Jason Cainglet told The STAR in another Viber message.Cainglet also pointed out that billions of pesos intended for irrigation systems, farm-to-market roads, post-harvest facilities, slaughterhouses, cold storage warehouses, agricultural marketing infrastructure, retraining programs and extension services were instead shamelessly siphoned off by politicians and their cohorts in government.
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