National Security Adviser (NSA) Hermogenes Esperon Jr. could not help but stress the importance of having a strong political will to fight communist insurgency after senators decided to cut the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict's (NTF-ELCAC) budget for 2022 by P24 billion.

Esperon, also the vice chairman of the anti-communist task force, said Tuesday, Nov. 9, that lawmakers should consider that the communist insurgency led by the Communist Party of the Philippines, New People's Army, and National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) has been a recurring problem for more than five decades already.

This, after Senator Sonny Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on finance, bared that they have slashed to P4 billion the proposed P28.12-billion budget of the NTF-ELCAC next year.

"I hope they understand that we are addressing a 53-year insurgency led by the CPP-NPA-NDF terrorist triad. I also hope that our senators will take to heart the plight of of people in the barangays affected by the prolonged conflict," he said.

The top security adviser said that he understands that the senators have prioritized the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic response where majority of the realigned funds will go to.

However, he noted that the local communist armed conflict has equally caused stunted growth on the countryside and, in effect, of the nation.

"We have spent almost a trillion to combat COVID-19. Let's have the political will to fight the long standing number one political security threat in our country," Esperon said, referring to the CPP-NPA-NDF.

Aside from the NTF-ELCAC's P4 billion budget, senators also allocated some P2.3 billion for the implementation of the task force's flagship project, the Barangay Development Program (BDP).

Under the BDP, each barangay that was cleared of communist influence is entitled to P20 million worth of development package which includes the establishment of farm-to-market roads, health stations, classrooms, water and sanitation systems, rural electrification, and livelihood projects.

A total of 822 barangays that were freed from CPP-NPA-NDF from 2016 to 2019 were included in the first batch of beneficiaries of the BDP, which has a funding of P16.44 billion this year.

Meanwhile, the second batch of beneficiaries include 1,406 barangays that were cleared from 2020 to 2021.

For this, the NTF-ELCAC asked the government for a budget of P28.12 billion in 2022 for the BDP so each of the barangays could receive P20 million.

However, Senator Angara reportedly said the panel still opted to fund the BDP in recognition if its importance even as some of his colleagues called to defund the NTF-ELCAC after one of its officials was embroiled in a word war with some senators due to issues of red-tagging.

Retired general Antonio Parlade Jr., a former NTF-ELCAC spokesperson and now deputy director-general at the National Security Council (NSC), had a verbal tussle with some senators after he described the community pantry movement -- an act of camaraderie amid the COVID-19 pandemic that was initiated by Ana Patricia Non in April 2021 -- as a work of the devil.

He also admitted to profiling the organizers of other community pantries whom he accused of putting the government in a bad light through their social movement.