DILG says 885 Barangay Dev't Projects for 2024 not yet implemented

Not one of the 885 Barangay Development Projects (BDP) of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) for 2024 has so far been implemented, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) told a House budget deliberation on Thursday.

DILG Undersecretary Marlo Iringan made the response during the questioning of Kabataan party-list Representative Raoul Manuel, who noted that the NTF-ELCAC is notorious for delayed implementation of BDP, which takes at least three years before full implementation.

The proposed 2025 national budget has earmarked P7.8 billion for the NTF-ELCAC for its implementation of BDPs. The DILG, however, oversees the implementation of the BDPs since local government units that receive BDP funds are under its jurisdiction.

“For 2024, the DBM just released the amount to our LGUs. Our LGUs are still in the process of procuring the projects,” Iringan said when asked by Manuel on how many BDP projects for 2024 have been implemented so far during the DILG budget deliberations before the House appropriations panel.

This prompted Manuel to call for the defunding of the NTF-ELCAC, saying that the state’s anti-insurgency task force has been getting away with chronic delay of implementing projects since 2021.

“We’re now in August. We just have four whole months left for the year. This is not the first time that NTF-ELCAC has been implementing DBP at such a very slow place. For 2021 BDP projects, they only reached a 96% obligation rate last June this year.  Kung ganito nang ganito ‘yung rate natin, kailan na naman nila magagamit yung buong pondo for this year?” Manuel said.

(If this is the rate we are going, when will they use the BDP funding for this year?)

“Aabot ba tayo ng 2027? Tapos, ang nais pa ng NTF-ELCAC, for the BDP ay taasan pa kung ano iyong nasa National Expenditure Program. Hindi natin matatanggap na ganito na naman. Paulit-ulit po tayo every year, kahit po ako nagsasawa na, pero it's my job to point out kung may mga ganitong lapse sa ating mga ahensya. All the more na dapat, i-defund na natin. I strongly, would insist, na i-defund na natin itong NTF-ELCAC, including its Barangay Development Program for 2025. I-realign na po yan directly to agencies working on education, health, and other social services,” Manuel added.

(Are they going to use it all by 2027? And they want an increased budget for this? This is unacceptable. This happens every year that it gets stale already, but it is my job to point this out. All the more that we must defund this task force, including this BDP. We should just realign this budget to agencies directly in charge of education, health, and other social services.)

Iringan did not respond to Manuel's questions on BDP programs at this point as the lawmaker transitioned to his other questions on NTF-ELCAC’s policy on red-tagging.

During the same budget deliberations, Iringan, also upon the questioning of Manuel, reported that 841 out of the 1,253 BDP projects for 2023 were already completed as of June 2024.

Manuel, however, pointed out that such a figure is different from the data culled from the NTF-ELCAC website, which showed that only 639 out of 1,253 BDP projects for 2023 were implemented so far.

In response, Iringan said, “We will be submitting to the NTF-ELCAC our latest reports on the status of projects.”

Manuel then said that agencies should do better in reconciling their figures as the government often touts the whole-of-government approach in implementing policies, including the BDP.

“NTF-ELCAC data only shows only 51% of BDPs were completed. If there is such a figure, agencies should coordinate their efforts because while they frequently harp on whole-of-nation approach, there is no whole-of-nation [approach] on data,” Manuel said.  —KBK, GMA Integrated News