Governors, mayors hit cut in budget for NPA-cleared bgys
GOVERNORS and mayors are ready to troop to the Senate to protest the huge budget cut from the Barangay Development Program for NPA-cleared barangays of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in the 2022 Budget.
In the NTF-ELCAC weekly press conference on Monday, Gov. Nelson Dayanghirang of Davao Oriental, Gov. Arthur Yap of Bohol, Gov. Ben Evardone of Eastern Samar, and Municipal Mayor Eric Constantino of Abra de Ilog, Occidental Mindoro said they are ready to lead their fellow governors in going to the Senate and they also intend to campaign against the Senators who will vote for the reduction of the Support to Barangay Development Program (SBDP) allocation in next year’s General Appropriations Act.
Dayanghirang said Davao Oriental was declared insurgency-free in 2013 but the communists have been trying to recover lost ground. “It was only when basic infrastructure and services through the SBDP were initiated in far-flung barangays that the local government units (LGUs) are again winning the war against communist terrorist groups (CTGs). The people will lose their trust in the government if the promised projects do not materialize,” Dayanghirang said.
Yap said that through the years, the government has invested more than P30 billion to make Bohol a tourism destination, including a new airport and ports and they need at least P5-billion more for these much needed local access road projects that will hopefully bring farm goods to the markets.
The Bohol governor estimated that Bohol is capable of earning P15 billion to P20 billion a year as a tourism, trade, and commerce hub and the proposed SBDP-funded local road projects is “the missing key to the province’s economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“In the case of Bohol, scrapping the SBDP projects might reignite insurgency there. What will happen to all that the government has invested in it? Same with Eastern Samar. Magkakaroon uli ng peace and order issue at imbes na mawala ay lumakas at kumalat ang insurgency,” Evardone stressed.
He added that the LGUs’ limited resources cannot cover all the projects they want to implement so the SBDP augmented their efforts.
“It’s very important to sustain the gains of the government now that the people have realized who really cares for them. Where the road ends, that’s where terrorism begins. Where the light does not shine, that’s where terrorism begins,” Constantino said.
Among the proposed SBDP projects in the town of Abra de Ilog are street lights with solar-powered charging stations, potable water systems, school buildings, and livelihood assistance.
DILG Undersecretary and Spokesperson Jonathan Malaya appealed to the Senate not to cut the SBDP budget from P28.1-billion to P24-billion because it will render the cleared barangays vulnerable anew to communist aggression.
According to the DILG Spokesperson, cutting the SBDP budget would be detrimental to the country’s peace initiatives and campaign against communist terrorism as this would mean a very small to no allocation at all for the cleared barangays for the implementation of basic infrastructure and development projects.
“We should not go back to square one now that the endgame is near for the communist terrorist groups (CTGs). Huwag nating ipagkait ang tsansa na tuluyan nang makabangon at umunlad ang mga barangay na dati ay pinamugaran at binusabos ng mga CTGs,” he said.
