Despite calls for the abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), President Marcos Jr. ordered the increase the funding of its Barangay Development Program (BDP) from P2.5 million to P7.5 million per barangay this year, the National Security Council (NSC) revealed on Monday, Nov. 11.
The BDP is the flagship project of the anti-communist task force which seeks to address the root cause of insurgency by providing socio-economic development programs to barangays that are considered free from rebel influence.
According to NSC Asst. Director-General Jonathan Malaya, the President directed the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to allocate an additional P5 million per barangay or a total of an additional P4.32 billion from unprogrammed funds of the National Treasury for the implementation of the BDP.
“The President was not happy with the original P2.5 million per barangay in the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) so he ordered the DBM to allocate the additional funds for this year. He said that P2.5 million will hardly make an impact in terms of development so he ordered the augmentation,” he said.
Data from the NTF-ELCAC showed that a total of 4,864 BDP projects have already been completed by the task force since its inception in 2018, accounting for 78.73 percent of the total 6,178 BDP projects. The BDP projects were aimed at improving the lives of thousands of people in 4,051 barangays nationwide.
Meanwhile, 457 projects are ongoing (7.4 percent); 370 projects are currently in the procurement stage (5.99 percent); and 356 are in the pre-procurement stage (5.76 percent).
There were 107 projects that were also terminated due to undisclosed reasons (1.73 percent); while 24 others were cancelled (0.39 percent).
During the 6th NTF-ELCAC Executive Committee Meeting in Malacanang last Friday, Nov. 8, Marcos allegedly expressed support for a P10 million allocation per barangay under the BDP in the 2025 budget, which is currently under deliberation in the Senate.
“The President noted that the NEP [National Expenditure Program] allocated P10 million per barangay for the next batch of recipient barangays next year and he hopes Congress will ensure that the final version of the 2025 GAA [General Appropriations Act] reflects this amount,” Malaya said.
Calls for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC has been circulating in the past years as the anti-Red task force is accused of engaging in red-tagging, a claim that has been denied by the group.
COCOPEA's inclusion defended
Meanwhile, Malaya defended the decision of Marcos to admit the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA) in the NTF-ELCAC, of which the latter also serves as the chairman, following criticism from leftist organizations.
The inclusion of COCOPEA as an official member of the executive committee of the NTF-ELCAC was announced during the executive committee meeting last week.
Malaya said that the decision was made as Marcos merely wanted to ensure that schools are safe from “terror-groomers” or similar elements who recruit students to join the armed struggle or take up arms or instigate violence against the government.
“Schools are supposed to be safe spaces for learning and free expression and should be free from violence, extremism, or radicalization at all times. Students are there to learn and to contribute to society in a meaningful way. That is the purpose why the President approved the inclusion of the COCOPEA as a partner-institution of NTF-ELCAC,” he said.
The move was criticized by Kabataan Partylist which argued that schools “should be spaces for learning, for free expression and organization, and not repression of critical thought.”
“This is clear encroachment into the autonomy of private schools. This is an attempt by Malacañang to take control of schools, imposing military over civilian authority under the guise of the NTF-ELCAC,” said Kabataan Party-list spokesperson Renee Louise Co.
Meanwhile, Anakbayan likened the membership of COCOPEA in the NTF-ELCAC as a “Trojan’s horse” for military presence in private schools.
“It is a serious encroachment on academic freedom and a calculated move to normalize and institutionalize state and military presence in schools. These ‘information awareness’ programs are nothing more than a Trojan horse for embedding NTF-ELCAC’s doomed to fail tactics in addressing the roots of armed conflict into our schools,” said the group’s deputy spokesperson, Mhing Gomez.
For Malaya, the criticisms on COCOPEA’s membership in NTF-ELCAC “are completely without basis and pure speculation.”
“If indeed they value critical thinking as they always claim, why should be they be threatened by information campaigns that simply seek to broaden student’s access to information about radicalization and the perils of armed struggle or violence? Schools should be an open market place of ideas and not spaces where democratic values are barred in the guise of protecting academic freedom,” he said.