THE ACADEMICS Unite for Democracy and Human Rights commended the Senate Finance Committee for slashing the budget of the National Task Force To End Local Communist Armed Conflict.

The agency’s resources had been cut from P28 billion to P4 billion.

“We commend our senators for defunding the NTF-ELCAC. Public funds are better spent on education and the pandemic response rather than on Duterte’s deadly crackdown on activists and assaults on academic freedom,” Dr. Michael Pante, one of ADHR’s convenors, said in a statement.

“We should be acquiring more library books for state universities rather than wasting billions of taxpayers’ money for the NTF-ELCAC’s red-tagging spree and other nefarious activities that even our good Senators have pointed out to be questionable,” he added.

A history professor at the Ateneo de Manila University, Dr. Pante had given a plenary speech entitled ‘Araling Pilipino Laban sa Pagdidisiplinang Inter-Agency at Whole-of-Nation’ that critiqued the NTF-ELCAC in the recent Hugpungan: 1st PUP Center for Philippine Studies Conference held last October 20.

“By repressing all forms of dissent to the extent of purging books from libraries, the Duterte administration is molding a generation of youth that will be ignorant of history and the social basis of rebellions. It’s about time this madness is put to an end,” Dr. Pante stressed.

The Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy, a militant organization of faculty and academic workers in UP, meanwhile, said defunding the NTF-ELCAC is a step in the right direction towards the complete abolition of the agency.

“We have to stop the NTF-ELCAC from fomenting anti-communist hysteria and fanaticism that treats even the slightest criticism of Duterte’s incompetent and repressive rule or the exercise of any form of independent thinking as subversive,” CONTEND-UP Chairperson and UP Diliman faculty Dr. Gerry Lanuza.

“Red-tagging perpetrated by the agency has fed into extrajudicial killings, harassment, threats, intimidation, and arbitrary arrests of activists and civilians. We say prioritize education, healthcare, and the pandemic response. Abolish the NTF-ELCAC,” Lanuza said.

The ADHR is an alliance of professors, researchers, university administrators and education professionals from the country’s leading universities.

It is the initiator of the ‘Aswang sa Aklatan’ online repository of books under attack by the Duterte government.