BY WENDELL VIGILIA and VICTOR REYES
A MEMBER of the militant at the House yesterday urged Congress to defund the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) after the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said the task force has yet to implement a single project under the Barangay Development Program (BDP) for fiscal year 2024.
“I strongly, would insist, that we defund NTF-ELCAC, including its Barangay Development Program for 2025. Let’s realign the funds directly to agencies working on education, health, and other social services,” Rep. Raoul Manuel (Kabataan party-list) Manuel told the House committee on appropriations in mixed English and Filipino during the budget hearing on the DILG’s P278.4-billion proposed national budget for 2025.
Manuel, a member of the militant Makabayan bloc, made the comment after Undersecretary Marlo Iringan said not one of the NTF-ELCAC’s 885 BDPs for 2024 has been implemented.
“For 2024, the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) just released the amount to our LGUs (local government units). Our LGUs are still in the process of procuring the projects,” Iringan told the panel chaired by Rep. Zaldy Co (PL, Ako Bicol), without expounding on the reasons for the delay in the fund release.
It is the DILG that oversees the implementation of the BDPs since local government units (LGUs) receive the funds and implement the projects.
The NTF-ELCAC is asking Congress for a P7.8-billion budget for BDPs under Malacañang’s P6.352-billion proposed budget for 2025, or a 371 percent increase from this year’s 2.1 billion budget.
FUNDS RELEASED
National Security Adviser and NTF-ELCAC vice chairman Eduardo Año said nearly 99 percent of the P2.16 billion allocated for the implementation of the Special Barangay Development Program (SBDP) for this year has been released to the LGUs.
Año said the funds were released by the DBM and the Bureau of Treasury, through Special Allotment Release Order and Notice of Cash Allocation, to 864 beneficiary barangays.
The SBDP is meant to bring development to areas formerly affected by communist insurgency, effectively addressing the root causes of insurgency. It calls for the implementation of infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects in the barangays, including farm-to-market roads, school buildings, water and sanitation systems, and health stations.
ELCAC said a total of 2,451 farm-to-market roads, 652 classrooms, 389 health stations, among others, have been constructed under the program.
From 2021 to 2023, a total of P28.39 billion have been released for the implementation of projects under the program.
Año said the program has brought positive changes in the communities.
“I am beyond proud and grateful to witness how our collective visions — once seemingly insurmountable — are little by little realized, especially seeing the much sought transformations now happening among our fellow citizens and their communities,” said Ano.
“And the NTF ELCAC will not stop until all these vulnerable barangays get the basic infrastructure,” said Año.
SLOW IMPLEMENTATION
Manuel said the NTF-ELCAC, the agency which has gained notoriety for “red-tagging” activists and militant lawmakers, does not deserve to be given a budget, noting it takes at least three years to implement BDPs.
“We’re now in August. We just have four whole months left for the year. This is not the first time that NTF-ELCAC has been implementing DBP at such a very slow place,” he said, noting that for 2021, the NTF-ELCAC reached only a 96 percent obligation rate last June. “At this rate, when will they be able to use the BDP funding for this year? Will it reach 2027?”
Manuel said the NTF-ELCAC’s proposed budget should be realigned to the respective budgets of agencies working on education, health, and other social services.
Iringan was not able to respond to Manuel since the lawmaker transitioned to his other questions on NTF-ELCAC’s policy on red-tagging.
Rep. Arlene Brosas (PL, Gabriela) also vehemently opposed the proposed increase for the NTF-ELCAC’s BDP budget.
“It has no logic because it was already proven that its (NTF-ELCAC’s) budget is only being used for repression, surveillance and harassment of progressive groups and individuals,” Brosas said told the budget hearing.
She further said that even the international community is critical of the NTF-ELCAC, following United Nations special rapporteur Irene Khan’s recommendation to abolish the task force.
She disputed President Marcos Jr.’s claim that the NTF-ELCAC has changed his administration, saying red-tagging and the filing of trumped-up charges against activists and progressive groups continue.
Brosas reiterated the Makabayan’s bloc call for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC and reallocating its funds “to programs that genuinely support women and the people.”
Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. said red-tagging is not a policy of the PNP under the Marcos administration after Manuel cited the red-tagging monitoring project of the Ateneo Human Rights Center (AHRC), which found out that majority of red-tagging cases were undertaken by the government, particularly the police through social media.
The Supreme Court held in a ruling last May that red-baiting or tagging threatens the right to life, liberty and security of the person being accused.
“With all due respect to Congressman Manuel, it is never the policy of the PNP to red-tag,” Abalos said. “Let that be put into record. If Ateneo has such a study, we will look into it and investigate.”
PNP Chief General Rommel Marbil, for his part, said: “We don’t want to red-tag anymore. If that happened, we have no idea. But I will investigate if that is happening. But right now, we don’t have any report that we are doing that.”
