Bayan warns NTF-ELCAC funds might be used by admin allies for 2025 polls

Progressive group Bayan on Tuesday warned that the proposed funds of the government’s anti-insurgency task force might be used by allies ahead of the 2025 midterm elections.

Bayan secretary general Raymond Palatino said that the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) should have been abolished.

“After the Supreme Court ruling on red tagging, NTF-ELCAC should have been abolished. Its retention means the continuation of red tagging practices,” Palatino told GMA News Online.

“(The) Marcos Jr. government intends to use the agency to dole out corruption tainted funds to allies ahead of midterm polls,” he added.

The 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP) earmarked P7.8 billion for NTF-ELCAC.

Also, the NEP allocated P4.56 billion worth of confidential and intelligence (CIF) funds to the Office of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. —P2.25 billion for confidential funds and P2.31 billion in intelligence funds.

For Palatino, Marcos should turn over these funds to social services instead.

“Marcos Jr. should lead by example by withdrawing his CIF and turning it over to social services. Redirect to farm subsidies especially in communities affected by flooding,” he said.

“Marcos Jr cannot claim of being different from Duterte when he keeps intact the notorious red tagging agency, NTF-ELCAC,” he added.

Last May, Following the Supreme Court's ruling that red-tagging threatens a person's life and liberty, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. maintained Thursday that NTF-ELCAC would not be abolished.

In response, National Security Council (NSC) Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya claimed Palatino "is a purveyor of fake news and disinformation."

"Every budget season they allege that funds for the Barangay Development Program (BDP) will be used by government or its allies for the elections but they never offer any shred of evidence," Malaya said.

The program, according to Malaya, has been implemented every year by various Local Government Units across the country. He said "no irregularity or abuse by the NTF-ELCAC has been established since its inception."

"The fact remains that the BDP is not implemented by the NTF-ELCAC but is, in fact, implemented in the countryside by the LGUs themselves," the NSC official said.

Malaya said the funds are released directly by the Department of Budget and Management to the LGUs and it is the LGUs that bid out, award, and implement the project under the supervision of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

"How these projects, identified by the barangays themselves, and implemented by the LGUs are to be used for the 2025 elections is beyond us. Palatino has a fertile imagination bereft of proof and evidence," Malaya said.

On the issue of red tagging, Malaya responded, "We wish to remind Palatino that NTF-ELCAC is under new leadership under the Marcos Administration. Allegations of red-tagging will not stick without evidence. Clearly, making allegations of red tagging has become a convenient excuse to divert attention from themselves or to evade responsibility or accountability. The Filipino people are not fools. Palatino and his allies have to do better than that."

Malaya also asserted that the NTF-ELCAC will not be abolished.

"Even if they protest to the high heavens, the NTF-ELCAC chaired by the President himself will never be abolished. Because of the NTF ELCAC, we are now at the tail end of communist terrorism. The President himself said so in his SONA that only 7 weakened (New People's Army) guerilla fronts remain with less than 1,000 armed members. The days of the CPP-NPA-NDF are numbered thanks to the whole-of-society approach taken by the NTF-ELCAC," the NSC official said.—RF, GMA Integrated News