NTF-ELCAC retains P16.4B ‘Barangay Development’ budget

On Nov 16, 2020

Senate Finance Committee chair, Sen. Edgardo 'Sonny' Angara, in his sponsorship speech last November 10, 2020, of the 2021 national budget made it clear the budget of NTF-ELCAC is to be retained intact

THE combined effort of communist front organizations in Congress and the legal mass movement, their Liberal Party allies in the Senate and the support of their sympathizers and closet communists in the media to remove the P16.4 billion allocation for barangay development has failed with the leadership of both chambers of Congress united in retaining the entire amount requested by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.

In his sponsorship speech on the proposed P4.5 trillion national budget for next year, Sen. Edgardo ‘Sonny’ Angara last week said the proposed amount would be retained.

In his sponsorship speech for next year’s budget before the Senate plenary last November 10, 2020, Angara, chair of the Senate’s Committee on Finance, said while the Minority Bloc headed by Sen. Franklin Drilon are right in their call to increase the country’s budget to deal with natural disasters and calamities, this will not be at the expense of the NTF-ELCAC.

“The funding for the NTF-ELCAC will be retained,” Angara stressed.

“This has been declared as a priority program of the Executive Branch as part of the efforts to address the insurgencies.

“The proposals of some senators to increase the calamity fund are well taken and will be addressed.

“From P16 billion this year, the Senate is looking at increasing this by another P5 billion, at least.

“But the source of funds will have to be from other items of the budget and not (from) the NTF-ELCAC,” Angara further said.

It can be recalled that since the budget deliberation started in September, the Makabayan Bloc—which Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines described as playing the role of the CPP’s “legal democratic forces in the country,” has been campaigning to discredit the task force’s budget, even describing it as the ‘Generals’ Pork Barrel,’ alluding to the mostly retired and active military and police officials involved in the task force.

But after the House leadership headed by Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and Rep. Eric Go Yap, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, rejected the slashing of the budget, the Makabayan Bloc intensified its anti-task force propaganda and relied on its LP-allies in the Senate to do the job for them.

In this effort, however, both groups also failed with Senate President Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto manifesting as early as two weeks ago that he is not in favor of slashing or transferring the bulk of the task force’s proposed budget.

The P16.4 billion requested by the task force is allocated to help more than 600 villages in the country’s far-flung areas that were formers strongholds of the armed communist movement represented by the New People’s Army (NPA).

Leaders in both chambers of Congress have now started to realize that only by funding the development of the country’s remote areas can the campaign to end the 52-year old armed communist insurgency can be effectively addressed.

The decision to retain the NTF-ELCAC budget also indicates the waning influence of communist front organizations to sway congressional decisions in their favor.