‘Game changer’: NTF-Elcac seeks P10M per NPA-free barangay

INQUIRER File Photo

MANILA, Philippines — The government’s anticommunist task force, known for Red-tagging or branding critics as communists, is urging Congress to restore P8.7 billion of its funding for a program that would grant P10 million to each barangay it considers liberated from the presence or influence of insurgents.

A week after Vice President Sara Duterte quit her post as one of its co-vice chairs, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) called on the Senate and the House of Representatives to approve the proposed budget for its Support to Barangay Development Program (SBDP) in 2025.

READ: NTF-Elcac won’t be abolished by Marcos, says security council exec

In a press statement released on Wednesday, the task force chaired by President Marcos said the SBDP had been a “game changer” in the government’s campaign to free geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAs) from the influence of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA).

In its proposed 2025 SBDP budget, the NTF-Elcac identified 870 barangays that would receive P10 million each for farm-to-market roads, school buildings, water and sanitation systems, health stations, rural electrification, and other relevant non-infra projects that “help boost the sustainable livelihood” of the identified communities.

READ: VP Sara Duterte quits Cabinet in break with Marcos

Grassroots development

In the statement, Assistant Director Rene Valera of the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s (DILG) Project Management Office said the proposal had been submitted to the Department of Budget and Management for inclusion in the national expenditure program.

“Hopefully, our proposal is P10 million per barangay,” Valera said.

NTF-Elcac deputy executive director and SBDP action officer Monico Batle said the body was “confident” that the proposed allocation would be accepted.

For the past three years, the NTF-Elcac has been writing lawmakers with jurisdiction over the identified barangays to get their support for the SBDP, Batle said.

READ: A slap in the face of red-taggers

The Barangay Development Program is the NTF-Elcac’s flagship initiative to “promote development in the grassroots level,” to address and fund the needs and concerns of impoverished barangays and carry out projects to deliver basic needs to their communities.

Since its inception, the program has released P28.39 billion to over 4,000 barangays purportedly cleared of NPA influence, according to the task force.

But the program has come under criticism and scrutiny amid allegations of misuse. In September 2021, Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas described the SBDP as a “pork barrel,” noting that it was a lump-sum item whose purpose was not specified in the spending program.

This year, the NTF-Elcac received a P10.3-billion budget, 8.9 percent higher than its funding in 2023, but much smaller than the P17.1 billion it received in 2022 and P19 billion in 2021, during the Duterte administration.

Direct to municipal treasury

The 2024 allocation for the SBDP was also smaller than during the previous government, with each barangay under the SBDP receiving only P2.5 million. The task force said this amount went to 822 NPA-cleared barangays, with 2,133 finished projects from a target of 2,320, a 91.94 percent completion rate, while the rest were continuing, awaiting procurement, or either terminated or canceled.

Valera and Batle clarified that the SBDP budget “goes directly to the municipal treasury” that hosts and implements the barangay projects, not to the NTF-Elcac or the DILG.

According to Valera, the SBDP “has bridged development gaps in GIDAs that for decades became laboratory grounds for communist violent extremism by waging an armed struggle to topple the government.”

The NTF-Elcac was created by former President Rodrigo Duterte in December 2018 to help the government obtain “sustainable and inclusive” peace and end the decadeslong insurgency problem in the Philippines.

Besides the President who sits as chair, it used to have two co-vice chairs, Sara Duterte and National Security Adviser Eduardo Año, until the younger Duterte resigned from both her posts in the NTF-Elcac and the Department of Education last week.

Undersecretary Ernesto Torres Jr. sits as the executive director of the task force’s national secretariat.

Batle said the NTF-Elcac was already looking at the transition from internal to external defense, which “doesn’t mean the end of the government’s quest to finally end local communist armed conflict in the country.”

He acknowledged, however, that the “Elcac” aspect of the task force must naturally end once the communist insurgency ceased to exist.

“The only thing we will end is the armed struggle [of the CPP-NPA-National Democratic Front of the Philippines],” Batle said.

But a number of human rights advocates and critics of the NTF-Elcac believe it is the task force that must be abolished, as its officials and spokespersons had become notorious for Red-tagging human rights defenders, activists, teachers, lawmakers and even journalists over the years.

In February this year, United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression Irene Khan urged the government to abolish the “outdated” NTF-Elcac.

“I therefore recommend that the task force should be abolished. The abolition would not only address some of the most critical drivers of Red-tagging, but it could also allow this administration to modernize peace-building approaches,” Khan said at a press briefing in Manila.

In November 2023, another UN official, Ian Fry, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, made a similar call to disband the task force after a 10-day mission in the Philippines.

In May, the Supreme Court ruled that Red-tagging was a real and legitimate threat to the lives and civil liberties of Filipinos.

In a 39-page full-court decision, the high court said being associated with communist rebels could make an individual a target of vigilantes, paramilitary groups, or even state agents. —with a report from Inquirer Research