Parlade: NTF-ELCAC deserves P19-billion fund

By Jennifer P. Rendon

 

Amid persistent calls from the Makabayan Bloc to defund the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), the bicameral conference committee has retained its contested P19-billion budget.

And for Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Southern Luzon Command chief Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., who is also the concurrent NTF-ELCAC spokesperson, the task force deserves the funding and even more.

Parlade, along with Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy, was in Passi City, Iloilo on Thursday (December 10) for the Panay Peace Summit.

He said that the funding will definitely help in the government’s effort to end insurgency.

Parlade said the NTF-ELCAC is in no way similar to the Priority Development Assistant Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel of lawmakers.

“Identified ‘yung mga nakalagay. Item by item nakalagay ‘yun doon – ilang hanging bridge ‘yan, barangay roads ‘yan. Specific ‘yun pati sitio and barangay,” he said.

Parlade said the projects are identified and the AFP has no hands in identifying these areas but the local government units and the provincial and municipal task forces.

“So, this is a convergence effort by many of agencies and local chief executives of specific areas,” he said.

Parlade said the NTF-ELCAC has identified 822 barangays as beneficiaries.

More than P16 billion will be allocated for barangay development programs.

“Palagay ko kulang pa ‘yun kasi napakarami pang barangays that have not been allocated by the said fund kasi nahati. Because of COVID, konti lang ang maibibigay ng Congress,” he said.

Parlade said the fund would not and isn’t enough to end insurgency “but it’s a good start.”

“We can end insurgency even without these funds as long as we are successful in really enlightening our people on the real intention of the CPP-NPA – how they agitate and infiltrate the people,” he said.

Parlade said that if the people are educated, they would know how to deflect persuasions of this group.

Meanwhile, Badoy also echoed Parlade’s denial that the P19-billion NTF-ELCAC fund is a “general’s pork barrel” like what the Makabayan Bloc is saying.

“Not a single centavo will reach the hands of the NTF-ELCAC. It will go straight to the implementing agency. Therefore, there would be clear accounting,” she said.

Earlier, Senate Committee on Finance chair Sonny Angara and House Committee on Appropriations chair Eric Yap both confirmed that the NTF-ELCAC’s P19-billion budget is intact.

Prior to that, the Makabahan bloc wrote to Speaker Lord Allan Velasco to reallocate NTF-ELCAC’s budget to augment the allocations for health, education, and job creation for next year.