Duterte isn’t just a blood-thirsty murderer. Like Marcos before him, the President is also a masterful thief.

This propensity toward murder and theft converges through the US-backed whole-of-nation approach to counterinsurgency via its implementing body, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

The mandate of the task force is not only to kill and spread fear in communities, but also to drain the people’s treasury. The Barangay Development Program (BDP), its premiere project, became this regime’s pork barrel. Corruption has become systematized and under the banner of crushing the longest communist insurgency in Asia.

Thousands of fake surrenderees are being exhibited all over the country as a supposed sign of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) imminent defeat. But on ground, these “rebel returnees” are mere civilians, especially farmworkers, who are being led to believe they are just receiving cash aid. For each surrenderee, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) receive an estimated Php 60,000.

Most recently in Guimba, Nueva Ecija, 25 members of farmer group Liga ng Manggagawang Bukid were told they were to receive cash aid of Php3,000 from DSWD. But when they arrived in the barangay hall, they were met with elements from the Philippine Army and the farmers were made to sign documents as surrenderees. Various instances of this has been document throughout Negros Island as well.

In Negros Occidental alone, Php 500 million is relegated to so-called infrastructure projects of 25 alleged “Communist-infested” barangays in sevel local government units. And for each cleared barangay, the LGU will receive Php 20 million in funding. It is clear that the BDP is a milking cow for state elements from the AFP to further fatten their pockets. Duterte has made it that way to appease his armed goons to continue being his lap dogs. This program also is a pretext for the continued military presence in peasant communities.

The Barangay Development Program is also being used to harass and surveil legal activists. Councilor of University of the Philippines Diliman USC Ajay Lagrimas has received reports that he is being closely monitored, along with other progressive youth leaders. Through a relative working in his town’s LGU, Lagrimas claims Duterte has mandated Barangay officials to monitor “subversives” and arrest them.

Aside from the BDP, NTF-ELCAC also makes use of bogus organizations such as the Hands Off Our Children and League of Filipino Parents to sow fear among youth activists. What happened to Anakbayan member Alicia Lucena, who was abducted and subjected to psychological torture by her mother who was acting as an agent of the NTF-ELCAC, proves that this is indeed a standing state policy. They are so shameless as to use the parents of activists to suppress dissent among the youth.

When the economic and health crisis seemed to hit its peak, the Filipino people are further bogged down by Duterte’s criminal irresponsibility. He is capable of making the worst even worse. In a recent Commission on Audit (COA) annual report, various government agencies, including the Department of Health (DOH), have underutilized and misused billions-worth of funds from last year.

Php101.34 billion from DOH was flagged by COA as unused, misused and excessive expenditures. This includes Php 67 billion deficiencies in pandemic funds with P11.9 billion unused funds for health workers’ wage and benefits.

While they pour so much money on the corrupt task force and other programs for counterinsurgency, Duterte and his cohorts are cheap on heading to the people’s urgent demands, like immediate cash aid and improving medical facilities. Come 2022 elections and as the crisis in our country worsens, a Duterte-led government will spell out more deaths, both from direct state violence and indirectly through state neglect.

The billions under the BDP and other NTF-ELCAC programs will surely be used by the AFP to back Duterte’s line up and other pro-military candidates for the elections. Thus, the call to abolish NTF-ELCAC is an urgent call of the broadest masses that must be taken on as a key electoral issue. A clear and strong stance against the task force is also a crucial indicator of who is genuinely the opposition in the upcoming electoral line-up. Any candidate who continues the programs instituted therein is merely prolonging this murderous status quo.

Not only does the dictator himself have to go, but also the tools that allow him to grow as big as he is now. The NTF-ELCAC will make a dictator out of anyone who wields it. It, too, has to go.

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