Photo by Carlo Manalansan/Bulatlat
Karapatan welcomes the Senate Committee on Finance’s move to defund the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) by cutting down PhP24 billion from its proposed budget and reallocating it to the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response, particularly to the special risk allowance for health workers.
Photo by Carlo Manalansan/Bulatlat
Karapatan welcomes the Senate Committee on Finance’s move to defund the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) by cutting down PhP24 billion from its proposed budget and reallocating it to the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response, particularly to the special risk allowance for health workers.
With the widespread public clamor against the NTF-ELCAC, and amid this public health crisis, it is clearly our struggling health workers who deserve the people’s taxes over the NTF-ELCAC’s devilish cabal of liars, red-taggers, war criminals, and human rights violators. Funneling billions of pesos to State violence and repression while millions of Filipinos are suffering is simply shameless.
Nonetheless, the remaining 4 billion pesos allocated for the NTF-ELCAC is still a huge sum — and it should be reallocated to addressing the people’s needs, such as ayuda. The defunding of the NTF-ELCAC is an urgent and welcome step, but if we are to consider the reasons why it should be defunded, then we also assert and strongly call for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC completely.
Cristina Palabay
Karapatan Secretary General