Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon on Tuesday said the government can use the P19-billion proposed budget for its anti-insurgency program for the advance purchase of COVID-19 vaccines instead of resorting to borrowing.

Drilon estimated that the funds to be allocated for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) can roughly cover the amount the government needs to procure the medicines.
 
“(Carlito) Galvez (Jr.) said government intends to buy an initial 50 million doses of vaccines for 25 million Filipinos. That means two doses per person. At US$5 dose or US $10 for two doses, that’s US $250-million or P12.5-billion needed to immunize 25 million Filipinos,” Drilon said in a statement.
 
“The anti-insurgency fund for 2021 is P19-B. We do not have to borrow,” the minority leader said.
 
Galvez, COVID-19 national task force chief, earlier said that the government is considering borrowing up to $9-billion from World Bank to help fund the government’s procurement of a COVID-19 vaccine which will primarily be administered to health workers.
 
Detained Senator Leila de Lima echoed Drilon’s point, saying the anti-insurgency fund should be used to save Filipinos from the pandemic.
 
“Ang dapat pinopondohan ngayon ay mga programa na sasaklolo sa mahihirap na lalo pang itinulak ng pandemya at kalamidad at kahirapan (the government ought to be funding programs that will save our people from the pandemic, calamities and poverty),” De Lima said in a separate statement.
 
“Because this anti-insurgency program is obviously not aimed to end insurgency the way NTF-ELCAC conducts it, with their hysterical dissemination of fake news and red-tagging blitz of known personalities and individuals only seeking government accountability,” she said.
 
“These hefty funds should better be spent on calamity response and on a more responsive poverty alleviation program to eliminate, or diminish, the root causes of social injustice that radicalizes some of our countrymen,” added the senator.
 
Sen. Risa Hontiveros also said she supports moves to realigning the NTF-ELCAC budget to health care, considering that the proposed budget of the Department of Health (DOH) for 2021 is underfunded.
 
“I stand with our Senate Minority Leader Senator Frank, we should really look into allocating the ELCAC budget of P19-billion to the more urgently needed (programs),” Hontiveros said in an interview on ANC Headstart.
 
“Hindi pinaka-urgent ngayon ang counterinsurgency kundi I'm proposing to move half of that or P8-billion to our underfunded DOH budget, and some P2-billion for our government and regional hospitals and other needs in the current health and economic crisis,” she further said.