Senator Nancy Binay on Friday, April 23, said some of the projects under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) may be redundant as they are already being implemented by other government agencies.

Binay said this is one of the reasons why she believes revisiting the NTF-ELCAC’s is a necessity, aside from the controversial statements its spokesperson, Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. has aired regarding the community pantries that have sprouted in Metro Manila in response to the government’s failure to address the needs of the poor and jobless.

For instance, she said some of the task force’s P19-billion budget are allocated for the construction of schools in far-flung communities, but the Department of Education (DepEd) already has a specific program for it under its “Last Mile School Program.”

The senator likewise noted that the Department of Agriculture (DA) is also implementing a farm-to-market roads program which is also supposedly under the NTF-ELCAC’s mandate.

“The intention of that agency is good because the intent is to bring back the budget to communities that are truly disadvantaged,” Binay said in an interview on ANC’s Matters of Fact.

“There is really a need to give them more, pero siguro baka (but maybe) this is not the proper body that is supposed to implement these types of projects,” she pointed out.

Another issue, Binay said, is the absorptive capacity of barangays to directly handle P20-million worth of state funds to carry out the supposed projects.

“During the budget deliberations (in 2020) I raised this issue because my fear is that baka magdoble ‘yung trabaho (the job would be redundant),” she said.

“And another issue is the capability of the barangay to handle P20-million funds, so isang issue din ‘yun na niraise natin (so those are the issues we raised),” she stressed.

In fact, Binay said that during the deliberations on the 2021 national budget, she specifically asked that the funds for the NTF-ELCAC be realigned to help the victims of the Taal Volcano eruption.

“There was no specific item that is really dedicated to the rehabilitation for the Taal volcano victims. So that was our proposal,” she said.

Binay, and other senators from both the majority and minority bloc, saw the need to withdraw the P19-billion funding of the NTF-ELCAC and realign the budget to boost the government’s COVID-19 response.

This was after the NTF-ELCAC chief Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade, Jr. red-tagged some community pantry organizers, earning the ire of the lawmakers and other private and public sectors.

Parlade, however, rejected the lawmakers' call saying defunding the NTF-ELCAC would be "stupid" and "unfair.”