By Junex Doronio
MANILA — With a budget of over P10 billion, Kabataan party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel has called on the Marcos Jr. administration to abolish the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and reallocate its budget and confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) to education and social services.
The NTF-ELCAC has P10.294 billion programmed funds under the 2024 GAA and obligations amounting to P2.833 billion as of June 30.
Manuel also questioned the Office of the President’s (OP) budget request for CIF, noting that it exceeds the budgets of the government’s intelligence agencies like the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) and the National Security Council (NSC).
The leftist lawmaker highlighted that the OP has requested P4.560 billion in confidential and intelligence funds for 2025, the same amount as in 2023 and 2024, which is higher than NICA’s proposed budget of P2.242 billion and NSC’s proposed budget of P896.9 million. NICA’s budget request for CIF is P991.2 million out of its P2.242 billion total, while the NSC has requested P250 million.
Manuel asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) if the OP has a mandate to “act like an intelligence agency.” The DBM confirmed that the OP has the highest allocation for CIF, justifying it by stating that the President, as commander-in-chief, acts “with inputs from security agencies.”
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