Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Wednesday batted for bigger budget in the proposed 2021 budget for the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD), the lead agency implementing the government’s housing progra.

At the Senate hearing on the P4.5-Trillion national budget, Drilon criticized the measly P4-Billion budget of the housing sector.

The housing backlog is currently at 6.5 million and could balloon to 12 million by 2030, or 22 million by 2040 if not addressed.

“With that huge backlog, I do not see the logic why we need more confidential and intelligence funds than budget to give our people decent and safe homes,” Drilon said in a statement on Wednesday.

The minority leader also said the “P4 billion budget of the housing sector is only 20 percent of the P19.3 billion appropriation for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

“The disparity is glaring and it saddens us that the 2021 budget does not address the needs of hundreds of poor Filipino families who live along esteros in Metro Manila and various parts of the country, putting their lives at risk particularly during this rainy season,” Drilon lamented.