Anti-communist agency gets P17B of P28-B proposed budget

The government’s controversial anti-insurgency panel is getting a P17.1-billion budget next year, with the Senate and the House of Representatives reaching a compromise on Wednesday to slash its original proposal of P28 billion by 60 percent.

But the 2022 budget of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) is only slightly below its current P19.3-billion appropriation and well above the Senate finance committee’s original proposal of P4 billion, which was later adjusted to P10 billion.

The committee chair, Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, who led the Senate’s contingent during the bicameral conference, earlier told reporters he was optimistic that the compromise budget would pass muster at the Senate.

But when he presented it back to the plenary later on Wednesday, the last session day of the year, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon demanded to know “what happened.”

According to Angara, the NTF-Elcac’s Barangay Development Program (BDP) amounted to P16.1 billion, of which P5.6 billion is lodged in the programmed fund and P10.5 billion in the unprogrammed fund, which usually requires government borrowings if nontax revenues are not met.

About P900 million is lodged in the budgets of other agencies implementing anti-insurgency programs, he said, adding: “The total of everything, including the BDP and other agencies, is approximately P17 billion.”

Drilon expressed disappointment that the bicameral panel had capitulated to the administration’s apparent favored treatment of the NTF-Elcac despite public criticism. But he said he understood the need for compromise.

The Senate ratified the 2022 spending bill at about 5:30 p.m. It will next be transmitted to President Duterte for signing into law.

Contentious item

The NTF-Elcac, of which the President is “commander and chair” and National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. is vice chair, became notorious for Red-tagging or labeling activists and other dissenters as communists on many occasions.

Its budget for 2022 was one of the most contentious items during the bicameral discussions.

Angara and his counterpart in the House, ACT-CIS party list Rep. and appropriations committee chair Eric Yap, pored over the P5-trillion General Appropriations Bill in a so-called “small bicam” to facilitate the reconciliation of conflicting provisions in the two chambers’ versions of the budget.

The Angara committee initially proposed only P4 billion to fund the operations of the NTF-Elcac next year, but was persuaded by pro-administration senators to raise it to P10 billion.

The House, on the other hand, retained the executive branch’s original proposed funding of P28 billion for the task force.

The NTF-Elcac’s current budget stands at P19.3 billion. Of that amount, P16.4 billion is earmarked for the BDP that, critics say, is being used for propaganda and political purposes.