Sara Duterte: Task force, not Davao City, did list of barangays for anti-red funding

DAVAO CITY—It was not the city government of Davao but the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) that determined the final list of barangays that would benefit from the government’s anti-insurgency funds in the proposed national budget next year, Mayor Sara Duterte said.

Duterte was reacting to an Inquirer report on Wednesday that 79 villages in the city would get P1.58 billion, or about 10 percent, of the P16.4-billion “barangay development program” fund that the task force had proposed to be spent for 822 villages around the country that had been “cleared” of communist rebel influence.

She said Davao City only listed 15 barangays as priority for funding in the Davao regional task force to end the local insurgency.

“The NTF-Elcac did not just list the 15 barangays but also included 68 others, which the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) assessed as ‘cleared’ of the main insurgency but were still vulnerable to communist recruitment,” she said. “This brings to 83 barangays in Davao City (supposedly covered by the program),” she said.

‘Whole-of-nation’ approach

The Inquirer report was based on a document it had obtained, which listed the more than 800 barangays that would get P20 million each for socioeconomic projects from the proposed P19-billion NTF-Elcac budget for 2021.

“The listing of beneficiary barangays all over the Philippines under the whole-of-nation approach to end local communist armed conflict is determined and finalized by the NTF-Elcac,” Duterte said.

Among the 15 barangays classified by the Davao regional task force as priorities were the geographically isolated areas of Magtuod, Tapak, Colosas, Salapawan, Lumiad, Mapula, Panalum, Mabuhay, Tibuloy, Salaysay, Malamba, Guitan, Biao Joaquin, Talandang and Dominga.

‘Deliberate discussion’

In a Viber message, Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo, the spokesperson for the military, said that he had not seen the list of barangays included in the program, but he was “sure” the listing was done after a “thorough and deliberate discussion.”

“The ultimate intent is to end this more than five decades of communist scourge, lies and deception that only brought death, destruction, divisiveness of Filipinos,” Arevalo said.

The armed communist rebels are “the antithesis of peace and development,” he added. —WITH A REPORT FROM PATRICIA DENISE M. CHIU