MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Friday defended the decision of the upper chamber to keep the P19 billion funding for the Duterte administration’s anti-insurgency task force intact under the proposed P4.5-trillion national budget for 2021.
In a statement, Sotto said conflicted and geographically isolated barangays “cleared” of insurgents need to be rehabilitated and rebuilt into developed rural communities to sustain government efforts to cut them off from communist influence.
Opposition lawmakers have been calling for the realignment of funds under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) to aug…
Keep on reading: Sotto defends intact P19B anti-insurgency fund under 2021 budget