Angara: Over P16-B budget allotted to NTF-ELCAC

The proposed budget of the controversial National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) was increased to at least P16 billion, Senator Sonny Angara said Wednesday.

This as lawmakers from the Senate and House of Representatives signed the bicameral conference committee report on the proposed P5.024 trillion budget for fiscal year 2022.

"I think we restored the ELCAC to P16 or P16.908 billion level which is the 2021 billion level," Angara told reporters.

The amount was an increase of at least P6 billion from the P10.8 billion that was allotted in the Senate version of the 2022 budget bill.

Senator Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, sponsor of the NTF-ELCAC budget for 2022, had appealed to his colleagues to provide the anti-insurgency task force a P19 billion budget next year or the similar amount it had received in 2021.

For the part of House committee on appropriations chairman Eric Yap, he said that lawmakers from the lower chamber really want to allot P29 billion for the anti-communist insurgency task force.

He said they just compromised with their Senate counterparts.

According to Angara, 95% of the budget will be allotted for its Barangay Development Program.

During the Senate plenary debates on the proposed 2022 budget, it was revealed that only 26 out of the 2,318 projects have been completed by the NTF-ELCAC. This was the reason why the Senate panel initially slashed the budget of the anti-insurgency task force.

Some lawmakers had called for the defunding or abolishing of the task force because of the reported red tagging activities of some of its officials.

The bicameral report on the proposed national budget is expected to be ratified this afternoon.

Yap earlier said they are expecting that the budget will be signed by President Rodrigo Duterte before Christmas Day. — RSJ, GMA News