Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Friday urged newly-appointed Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Lt. Gen. Dionardo Carlos to review the PNP’s use of its anti-insurgency funds.
Drilon challenged the incoming PNP leadership as he finds it suspicious that the PNP conducted about 13 million different activities in less than a year, or about 43,333 activities in a day using the P1-billion allocation from the controversial National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or NTF-ELCAC.
The Senate has moved to slash the proposed budget of the NTF-ELCAC’s budget by P24-billion and realigned the funds to boost the government’s COVID-19 response following allegations of misuse.
“That’s 1,805 activities per hour! Has PNP become a ‘super body’ or ‘superman’? It is a mystery to me how they were able to do it,” Drilon said in a statement.
During the continuation of the Senate’s deliberation on the proposed P5.024-trillion national bduget for 2022, senators questioned the PNP over the utilization of the NTF-ELCAC funds which has been cited by the Commission on Audit (COA) for irregularities.
The PNP has P1.084-billion in 2021 for anti-insurgency programs and it is seeking the same amount for next year. Out of the P1.084-billion, P766.2-million has been obligated.
But when Drilon asked for the specific programs, Senator Sonny Angara said, citing PNP data, the police force has spent P766-million since the start of the year for the conduct of about 13 million different anti-communism activities by its 12 clusters.
The minority leader said it is hard to believe that 13 million activities could be done by a single agency in a matter of less than a year.
“I’ve been in the Senate for 24 years, it’s only now that I heard of a report an agency funded 13 million activities in a span of one year or less than a year,” he said.
“We computed that, and it turns out that for the past 10 months, assuming 13 million activities, that would be 43,333 activities per day, which on its surface is immediately difficult to believe,” Drilon said.
“No wonder the COA has flagged the way the budget is being disbursed,” he pointed out.
Drilon also recalled a recent deliberation on the NTF-ELCAC funds, wherein P400-million were allocated to Panabo City in Davao Del Norte but the local officials claimed there was no insurgency in the city.
At the same time, the veteran lawmaker urged the Senate Committee on Finance chaired by Angara, to take a closer look at the utilization of NTF-ELCAC funds not only in the PNP but in other agencies.
“May we request that this allocation be examined closely, and we will accept the explanation of the good sponsor...I would strongly suggest for the committee to take a look at this carefully. This is not small money. It is bigger than many of the budgets presented here,” Drilon said.
“This NTF-ELCAC sticks like a store thumb. We find it everywhere,” he lamented.