Unspent money with PNP shows NTF-ELCAC needs no new funding, senator says
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police's low spending of the anti-insurgency funds it received in 2020 as a member of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) is proof that it was excessive to give P19.2 billion to the task force this year, a senator said Friday.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said this in response to a yearly Commission on Audit report which found that the PNP spent around P86.57 million, or 12%, of P722.95 million in anti-insurgency funds it received as a member agency of the NTF-ELCAC last year.
Police Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, chief of the PNP, has since assured the public that the money is intact, and will be used "wisely" in remote areas where communist rebels operate.
“The COA finding is proof that the government did not need the P19.2 billion anti-insurgency fund lodged under the NTF-ELCAC this year and, more so, it is proof that we do not need to give a single centavo to the NTF-ELCAC for 2022," Drilon said.
"We have more than sufficient funds to counter insurgency, millions of which remained untouched, unobligated and unspent," he added. "To fund NTF-ELCAC in 2022 will cause [an] unnecessary drain on our limited resources meant to respond to the continuing pandemic and provide aid to millions of unemployed and hungry Filipinos."
"To insist on anti-insurgency funding in the 2022 national budget in the light of the COA findings will bolster suspicion that the NTF-ELCAC is a huge campaign kitty.”
Drilon in June vowed to oppose "tooth and nail" the budget for the task force in 2022 which he said could be used as a multibillion peso "election war chest."
A bulk of the NTF-ELAC's current budget, P16.4 billion of the total P19 billion, goes to its Barangay Development Program — the manner of disbursement for which Drilon has flagged on several occasions as affording the task force too much discretion.
Drilon also sounded the alarm in May over what he called the hurried release of P10.68 billion in funds to the task force out of its total P19 billion budget for 2021.
Over P7 billion was released to the NTF-ELAC in April when lawmakers were calling for its budget to be realigned to the government's pandemic response over its spokespersons' incessant red-tagging of community pantry organizers as well as activists and celebrities. Another P3.14 billion was released on March 24.
In addition to Drilon, Sens. Joel Villanueva, Sherwin Gatchalian, Risa Hontiveros and Francis Pangilinan in April called for the realignment of the NTF-ELCAC's entire 2022 budget to the government's pandemic response.
Others in the Senate have said they want to review the task force's funds.
However, Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto III at the time opposed calls from senators to realign the task force's funds, telling several news outlets that it should be "defanged" instead of defunded.
— Bella Perez-Rubio
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