Department of Public Works and Highways (Philippines)
| Kagawaran ng Pagawain at Lansangang Pambayan | |
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 DPWH building |
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| Department overview | |
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| Formed | January 24, 1899 (under the First Republic) January 30, 1981 (present form) |
| Headquarters | Bonifacio Drive, Port Area, Manila |
| Annual budget | ₱290.5 billion (2015) |
| Department executive | |
| Website | www |
The Philippines’ Department of Public Works and Highways (Filipino: Kagawaran ng Pagawaing Bayan at Lansangan), abbreviated as DPWH, is the executive department of the Philippine government solely vested with the Mandate to “be the State's engineering and construction arm” and, as such, it is “tasked to carry out the policy” of the State to “maintain an engineering and construction arm and continuously develop its technology, for the purposes of ensuring the safety of all infrastructure facilities and securing for all public works and highways the highest efficiency and the most appropriate quality in construction” and shall be responsible for “(t)he planning, design, construction and maintenance of infrastructure facilities, especially national highways, flood control and water resources development systems, and other public works in accordance with national development objectives,” provided that, the exercise of which “shall be decentralized to the fullest extent feasible.”
History of the DPWH stretches back as far as the history of Philippine government itself. During Spanish times, the Spanish constructed the first roads in the Philippines using significant forced labor. These public works projects were not only used in the connection of towns and fortresses, but also in improving communications. As Spain expanded the scale of its public works projects, it resorted to a policy of attraction through public works projects. In 1867, in order to pursue this objective, the King of Spain by decree designated the Spanish Governor-General as the Chief of Public Works assisted by Junta Consultiva through a Royal Degree in 1867. Joan Lucero
It was in 1868 that the DPWH was born as the Bureau of Public Works and Highways, or Obras Publicas. Alongside the Bureau of Communications and Transportation (Communicaciones y Meteologia), now the Department of Transportation and Communications, the BPWH was organized under a civil engineer known as the “Director General”. It was responsible for all public works projects being done in the islands.
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