NTF-Elcac funds ‘prostituted’ – Lacson

Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson (Joseph Vidal/Senate PRIB)

MANILA, Philippines — The government’s security sector must first improve the implementation of its anti-insurgency programs before it can get back the P28 billion it has proposed for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac), Sen. Panfilo Lacson said on Tuesday, as he decried how the task force’s funds have been previously prostituted.

Lacson defended the slashing by the Senate committee on finance of the NTF-Elcac’s 2022 budget by 86 percent—from P28 billion to P8 billion—but hinted that senators may restore it upon a mere promise of its officials of a better implementation.

“Let’s say its implementation has been prostituted. So, the senators are studying it now, the ball is in their court. If they can promise that they will fix its implementation, they’ll get their P28 billion back, because it really is a great concept,” he said.

Lacson’s statement comes on the heels of the backlash received by his presidential rival, Vice President Leni Robredo, who critics said made a turnaround in expressing support “for all for the mandate and the functions” of the task force, like the Barangay Development Fund.

Robredo has earlier supported the abolition of NTF-Elcac, saying the government and the Communist Party of the Philippines need to create a conducive environment for peace talks.

Lacson, chair of the Senate committee on national defense and security, declined to give details on what he meant by the prostitution of NTF-Elcac projects, but maintained that the practice should stop.

“I have been consistent [in defending the NTF-Elcac], but when it comes to implementation that’s where it gets messed up. Even with all the laws we’ve been passing, the problem is always implementation,” he said.

The Partido Reporma chair and standard-bearer challenged officials of the government’s security sector to ensure better implementation of the NTF-Elcac funds and not allow it to be used for political ends.

“The authorities … the executive department, particularly the security sector—the PNP, AFP and the implementers, the implementing agency—should show that they are implementing it properly. Not with politics mixed into it,” he said.

Senators had pushed for a P24-billion cutback on the proposed 2022 funding of the NTF-Elcac as it has been able to implement only 26 of its 2,318 projects for 2021.

The NTF-Elcac’s critics in the Senate also noted that many of the task force’s functions and projects, and for which it has received funding, had encroached into the mandate of other government agencies.

“We still set aside P4 billion … this is a blind allocation in effect because we had no report before us at all,” Angara said of the failure of the NTF-Elcac to submit to the Senate its accomplishment reports.