THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers has sought the rechanneling of the P19.1 billion proposed budget for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict to the education sector “to put the money to good use”.

“Looks like Gen. Parlade and the NTF-ELCAC are desperately trying to prove their relevance through indiscriminate red-tagging to bag the proposed 3,000 percent increase in their budget next year. We can only watch in disgust knowing that taxpayers’ money pay for this madness while our teachers and students in distance learning are deprived of enough government subsidy,” Raymond Basilio, the group’s secretary general, said.

He was referring to Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., chief of the military’s Southern Command.

Basilio referred to Parlade’s recent ‘crazy crusade’  to red-tag and threaten personalities vocal of their advocacies such as Angel Locsin, Catriona Gray and Liza Soberano.

“Gen. Parlade has so much to gain from the looming scandalous increase in the NTF-ELCAC budget next year, as at least 80% of it are pork barrel funds for the generals,” Basilio added.

He said that about P16 billion of the P19.1 billion proposed 2021 NTF-ELCAC budget are discretionary funds for the generals which is more than enough to provide 900,000 teachers in public schools with P15,000 per year teaching expense allowance.

“At the time of the pandemic, when our main concerns are treating the sick and putting food on the table, when we struggle to uphold education to mitigate the pandemic’s long-term impact to the nation, it is plainly incomprehensible why the Duterte government is prioritizing instead a program that fuels political strife,” Basilio said.

He lamented that ACT was one of the targets of the red-tagging campaign, citing reports that the group was included in the list of organizations branded as “communist terrorist” during the NTF-ELCAC webinar at Cavite State University.

“NTF-ELCAC’s malicious and nonsensical red-tagging tirade holds no value to our teachers. Where are the laptops and the internet allowance that we need for distance teaching? Where are the funds for module printing and safe schools? Where are the health protection mechanisms and benefits for our education frontliners?“ Basilio said.