Drilon on PNP’s low use of anti-insurgency fund: NTF-ELCAC must be defunded

Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon on Thursday said the report of the Commission on Audit on the Philippine National Police’s low utilization of its anti-insurgency funds under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) in 2020 proves that the agency should be defunded next year.

The senator has been calling for the defunding of NTF-ELCAC in fear that it could be used for the campaign of administration officials in the 2022 elections.

“The COA finding is proof that the government did not need the P19.2 billion anti-insurgency fund lodged under the NTF-ELCAC this year and, more so, it is proof that we do not need to give a single centavo to the NTF-ELCAC for 2022,” he said.

“We have more than sufficient funds to counter insurgency, millions of which remained untouched, unobligated and unspent,” Drilon argued.

“To fund NTF-ELCAC in 2022 will cause unnecessary drain on our limited resources meant to respond to the continuing pandemic and provide aid to millions of unemployed and hungry Filipinos,” he said.

“To insist on anti-insurgency funding in the 2022 national budget in the light of the COA findings will bolster suspicion that the NTF-ELCAC is a huge campaign kitty,” Drilon said.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)