NTF-Elcac’s budget cut to P6.3B in 2023

Clarita Carlos

National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos on Friday revealed that the budget of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) in the 2023 General Appropriations Act (GAA) was only P6.3 billion. Carlos said P3.7 billion was slashed from its original P10-billion allocation. “It became 6.3 billion and we are still investigating why there was such a cut,” she said. Based on the website of the Department of Budget and Management, the 2023 national budget showed that the NTF-Elcac’s Barangay Development Program was given P6.336 billion. Last year, a P10-billion budget was proposed for the NTF-Elcac, a significant increase from the P5.6 billion it received in 2022. During the budget deliberations, lawmakers realigned P5 billion from the NTF-Elcac budget but it was later restored in the reconciled version of the 2023 national budget. It remained unclear why the budget of the NTF-Elcac was at P6.3 billion in the 2023 GAA. —Nestor Corrales