MANILA, Philippines – The Senate on Tuesday, November 15, approved the proposed 2023 budget of P252.6 billion for the interior department and its attached agencies, but not before Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III emphasized the need to evaluate the performance of the controversial National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

While the NTF-ELCAC has P10 billion lodged into the Department of Budget and Management’s budget for assistance to local government units (LGUs), there is also P1.084 billion set aside for it in the budget of the Philippine National Police (PNP), which is under the supervision of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

Senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara, sponsor of the DILG budget, said that this P1.084 billion covered activities that “addressed the root causes of insurgencies.” It is more than double the P400 million approved in 2022.

Some activities under the NTF-ELCAC include: counter mobilization activities, conduct of focused law enforcement operations, capacity building and situational awareness, and intensified monitoring.

“Is the DILG ready to give a report for this three-year-old program? Let’s assume you haven’t evaluated 2022 yet, but you must have evaluated 2020 and 2021. [Can you] prove to us that the DILG has been evaluating it?” said Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.

The DILG initially furnished Angara and Pimentel with a one-page document on the LGU beneficiaries of the country’s anti-insurgency program.

“This document given to me, it’s like it is meant for a statistician – those who want to look at numbers and will be happy with numbers,” Pimentel said.

“But we established earlier that your task is to evaluate the implementation of the program. My understanding is that you also assess [like] ‘We believe the program is effective and successful,’ or, ‘We believe the program is not making any difference to the lives of our people. We recommend its discontinuance.’ Things like that,” he said further in a mix of English and Filipino.

DILG officials later gave the two senators a copy of the 2021 “Lakbayanihan para sa Kabarangayan” report. Pimentel said his concern was addressed as he was furnished the report.

Human rights groups have long called for the NTF-ELCAC’s abolition and defunding, as it is notorious for labeling progressive and critical voices as aligned with the local communist movement. It was created during the Duterte administration, and vice chaired then by Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and had as its spokesperson Lorraine Badoy – both of whom had red-tagged individuals and organizations.

NTF- ELCAC is now vice chaired by National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos.

Rights group Karapatan once called the NTF-ELCAC a “weapon by [former president] Rodrigo Duterte in his desperate bid to crush dissent and terrorize the Filipino people.”

“Since its creation in 2018, the NTF-ELCAC has systematically engendered human rights violations and even war crimes in counterinsurgency operations. Far from its ‘mandate’ to end the decades-long armed conflict and bring about ‘inclusive and sustainable’ peace, the Duterte government has used the NTF-ELCAC to wage a war targeting human rights defenders, journalists, critics, and anyone who stands in the way of Duterte’s de facto martial law,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said in December 2021.

Under the new administration, the NTF-ELCAC has not recommended the resumption of peace talks with communist rebels.

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DILG wants more funds for police, fire protection, jails in P251-B budget for 2023

More confidential funds, but less than OP

The DILG will also get a P20-million increase in confidential funds. From the P80.6 million granted in 2022, the Senate approved P100.6 million in confidential funds in 2023.

Meanwhile, the PNP will get P806 million in intelligence funds in 2023.

Angara gave the following justifications for the P20-million increase in the DILG’s confidential funds:

• To sustain gains in the country’s anti-illegal drugs campaign
• To monitor and intensify efforts on information-gathering for local officials allegedly involved in terrorism and other illegal activities like insurgency or support for “atrocities” by leftist groups
• Surveillance of activities, machinations, and strategies of offenders using cyberspace and victimizing minor children and women
• Conduct of greyhound operations in jail facilities in cooperation with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (inter-agency operations within the DILG to flush out illegal activities in the jails, particularly contraband
• Information-gathering against illegal drug-related activities of jail personnel and persons deprived of liberty
• Producing evidence-based surveillance reports against syndicates carrying out “economic sabotage activities” like price manipulation, illegal importation, trading, and smuggling, among others

Meanwhile, intelligence funds would be used for the following:

• To support intelligence and counter-intelligence activities, the purchase of information, monetary rewards for the arrest of most-wanted persons
• Conduct of counter-intelligence operations for the PNP’s anti-criminality campaign through “special projects” related to anti-terrorism, internal security operations, drug operations, anti-criminality operations
• To support covert operations against organized crime groups, and high-profile criminals and personalities whether in the Philippines or abroad
• To support operations of the Philippines’ nine police attachés in the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, France, and Thailand

The PNP, a law enforcement body, has much less confidential and intelligence funds than the Office of the President (OP), which was granted P4.5 billion in funds of this kind. This is the same situation as last year.

Pimentel had earlier criticized the allotment of billions in confidential and intelligence funds to the OP, and the hundreds of millions in similar funds for the Office of the Vice President and the education department led by Vice President Sara Duterte.

He said that these funds should be focused towards law enforcement and security-related agencies. – Rappler.com