Financial Assistance to LGUs: How the LGSF-FA Programme Is Really Distributed

Rep. Antonio Tinio

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How the Local Government Support Fund – Financial Assistance (LGSF-FA) — the biggest of the five LGSF programmes — was distributed across two fiscal years, and why FY2026 is a different programme from FY2025 wearing the same name. Distribution by LGU tier, expenditure type, region, and per-item recipient breakdowns, in Philippine pesos.

The headline finding

Financial Assistance is the largest LGSF programme in both years and roughly doubled between FY2025 and FY2026 (about ₱11.17 B → ₱24.15 B released). But the composition inverted completely. Two things stand out:

FY2026 figures are releases, not appropriations. RA 12314 appropriates ₱37.49 B for LGSF-FA; only ₱24.15 B (64.4%) had been released as of 31 May 2026 — over ₱13 B still unreleased at snapshot time.
FY2025 was capital-outlay-heavy (about ₱10.5 B, ~94% infrastructure/equipment/ICT); the cash-release column equals the allocation to the peso on nearly every FA row, so the apparent 100% release rate is an artifact of how DBM books the programme.

What the report shows

Overall distribution — FA as a share of total LGSF, by year, tier, expenditure type, and region.
Top 5 recipients by LGU tier (province / city / municipality / barangay), and a separate top-5 capital-outlay view.
Per-item appendix — every line item for every recipient in any top-5 table, grouped by year and tier.
Hover any figure for the exact peso value; every section carries a full data table underneath.

⚠️ Data notes (from the tool itself): “Capital outlay” here is project type inferred from descriptions, not the GAA expense class (the FY2026 GAA books the entire LGSF as MOOE, so the Capital Outlays column is blank). NCA/cash-release tells you nothing about whether money actually moved. Tier is inferred from DBM’s geographic hierarchy, not stated. DBM’s own “Total Support Fund” headline is ~₱58.9 M below the sum of its five programme measures; the figures here match the programme measures exactly.

Related: explore the full LGSF (all five programmes) in the comprehensive LGSF dashboard →.

Source: Department of Budget and Management, Local Government Support Fund — dbm.gov.ph/local-government-support-fund. Project-level data extracted from DBM’s public LGSF dashboard on 15 September 2026; dataset last refreshed 26 June 2026, figures as of 31 May 2026. FY2026 appropriations per the FY2026 GAA (RA No. 12314); programme guidelines per Local Budget Circular No. 169.

Reference resource prepared by the Office of Rep. Antonio Tinio for public budget-literacy and oversight.