Senators want other use for P900-M ‘Tokhang’ budget

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon (left) and Sen. Panfilo Lacson INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

With President Duterte’s war on drugs no longer led by the Philippine National Police (PNP), senators on Thursday moved to find other uses for the P900 million allotted for the controversial campaign in the 2018 national budget.

One suggestion: Use that money to fund PNP housing projects instead.

At the resumption of interpellations on the proposed budget of the Department of the Interior and  Local Government (DILG), Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon sought the realignment of the P900 million allotted for the PNP’s “Oplan Tokhang” antidrug campaign, as well as the P500 million programmed for the DILG’s anticrime initiative called “Masa Masid.”

Drilon said he would propose in the period of amendments scheduled next week that those funds, totaling P1.4 billion, go to building more houses for the police, “since the PNP is not involved now in the anti-illegal drug campaign.”

He reminded fellow senators about President Duterte’s Oct. 10 order for the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to take over the antidrug campaign from the PNP.

The President made the move amid growing public outrage over the killing of drug suspects, including teenagers, in questionable police operations.

Drilon said he had learned through Sen. JV Ejercito, who defended the DILG budget, that 10,300 housing units were still needed by PNP personnel and their families.

In the proposed DILG budget for 2018, only P1.6 billion was allotted to build 450 housing units for policemen, he noted.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III proposed that P60 million out of the P900-million “Tokhang” budget be given to the PNP Internal Affairs Service (IAS).

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, however, informed Sotto that he had already submitted amendments to the Senate finance committee for an additional P70 million realignment for IAS.

Lacson said he had also proposed that the Tokhang budget be allocated instead for the PNP’s maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE). He pointed out that since 2012, the agency’s MOOE had been stuck at “P1,000 per capita, per police per month,” when the ideal should be P1,700.

“If I will augment it with P900 million, it will raise it to P1,413… or an additional P413,” the senator said.

Speaking later to reporters, Lacson said PDEA’s 2018 budget had been augmented with P1.2 billion.