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Where did NTF-ELCAC funds go?: Senate President Vicente Sotto III asks Sen. Sonny Angara, chairperson of the Committee on Finance and sponsor of House Bill No. 10153, or the 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA) bill, to explain how the P16.4 billion funds for the barangay development programs under the National Task Force to End Local Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) were spent for projects under the 2021 GAA. “How was it executed? We have to have a copy of how it was spent and where,” Sotto said during the continuation of the hybrid budget deliberation Thursday, November 11, 2021. Angara informed Sotto that of the 2, 318 projects to be funded by the P16.4 billion barangay development fund, only 26 have been completed. He said the rest were in various stages of completion with over 900 in the pre-procurement stage, which included the detailed engineering design and program of work; over 700 in the procurement stage and 560 projects which are ongoing. Senators decided to slash the NTF-Elcac 2022 proposed funding from P28 billion to P4 billion. Angara called the proposed 2022 NTF-Elcac budget a “blind allocation” since agencies failed to submit reports on how funds were spent on projects. NTF-Elcac is a task force organized by the government to respond and raise awareness to the ongoing communist insurgency. (Voltaire F. Domingo/Senate PRIB)