Drilon asks Senate to scrutinize gov't's use of anti-insurgency funds

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Friday, April 23, called on the leadership of the Upper Chamber to compel the controversial National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) to report its use of its P19-billion budget.

Drilon issued the appeal as he reiterated his suspicion that the anti-insurgency funds could be used “in aid of 2022 elections.”

The opposition lawmaker stressed that under the 2021 General Appropriations Act (GAA), the NTF-ELCAC mandated to submit a quarterly report to the Senate and the House of Representatives on the utilization of the funds.

"I will request the Senate leadership to require NTC-ELCAC to submit the quarterly report,” Drilon said in an interview with One News.

“These are not small funds. Magagamit sa pulitika iyan (That can be used for politicking),” he warned.

The 2021 GAA provides that “the implementing agencies and NTF-ELCAC shall submit to the Office of the President, DBM (Department of Budget and Management), House of Representatives and the Senate, either in printed form or by way of electronic document, quarterly reports on the utilization of funds and physical accomplishments."

Drilon said that while Congress cannot defund NTF-ELCAC this year, its P19-billion appropriation can be realigned to augment the country’s depleting COVID-19 pandemic response budget.

The President, he added, does not need to seek an authority from Congress to be able to realign the anti-insurgency funds, saying such authorization was already provided in the GAA.

“Insofar as the funding is concerned, the defunding cannot happen now. It can be defunded when we craft the 2022 budget. However, the President has the full authority to realign the funds. In fact, the present GAA includes as among the projects that fund would be COVID-19 vaccination,” Drilon explained.

“There is authority under the law to use these funds for vaccinations and for indigent individuals. If the President is minded to, he has the full authority under the law to realign these funds from 822 so-called cleared barangays to the much needed and urgent ayuda (aid) to residents affected in the NCR Plus areas,” he added.

Senators on Thursday pushed to review and even defund the NTF-ELCAC after it red-tagged organizers of community pantries that have spread in several areas in Metro Manila as well as in other regions.

Like activists and advocacy groups, volunteers of the donation-driven movement were linked by the NTF-ELCAC to communist rebels, with its spokesperson comparing them to "Satan's apple".

Of the P19-billion NTF-ELCAC fund, P16.4 billion was supposed to be spent for its Barangay Development Program, where barangays (villages) "cleared" of insurgency will receive P20 million each.

During their budget deliberations last year, Drilon had moved to realign the task force's funds to the more urgent needs of the country amid the pandemic. He had said that it was a lump-sum "pork barrel" of Malacañang.

"It was accepted in the Senate. In the bicam, however, I am sure Malacañang lobbied that it came out the way it was written today,” he said on Friday.