Pouring billions to fight insurgency fire: Questions on NTF-Elcac funds demand answers

MANILA, Philippines—While proposals to allocate billions of pesos in funds to the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) have always been met with strong opposition, it still manages to get a big share of the government’s budget.

The government’s weapon against a half-century old insurgency, the NTF-Elcac, which was created on Dec. 4, 2018 by then President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order 70, first received P1.7 billion in 2020.

But in 2021, even with strong opposition from activists red-tagged by some of its officials, the budget of the task force grew to P19.2 billion and then P17.1 billion this year—resources intended for the Barangay Dev…

Keep on reading: Pouring billions to fight insurgency fire: Questions on NTF-Elcac funds demand answers