Department of National Defense (DND) Office-in-Charge and Senior Undersecretary Jose Faustino Jr. has said that the agency will continue to back the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) under the Marcos administration, calling it a "game-changer".
"We have proven that the national task force, all our efforts of the NTF-ELCAC has been the game changer," Faustino told the House Committee on Appropriations on Thursday, Sept. 15 during the budget deliberation of the DND.
"Since the implementation sir of NTF-ELCAC, 2019 to present, the following are the significant accomplishments of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), as the head agency of the...cluster, and of course, the DND," he said.
"We have cleared communist terror terrorist groups (CTG)-controlled barangays, we have redirected sectoral front organizations, we have neutralized CTG personalities and we have accounted several firearms and we have recovered some, a big number of anti-personnel mines," he said.
"And more importantly," Faustino continued, "We were able to dismantle this time around 60 guerrilla fronts. So, the will continue sir to support this ."
The DND head honcho said the NTF-ELCAC has been a game-changer because in just three years of implementation, "We were able to see the downtrend in all the parameters of these communist terrorist groups."
"We are now continuing this program and the DND will support this program," Faustino stressed.
"As I mentioned, this is a game-changer and we see that we are now approaching the irreversible trend for the other side to recover...I can say that we have lessened the threat of the ," he added.
The NTF-ELCAC, which critics have linked to alleged red-tagging activities, was hatched during the previous Duterte administration.