The National Security Council (NSC) has proposed a budget of P10M per village for projects aimed at “fostering peace” in Cordillera barangays for 2025.
National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) Executive Director Ernesto Torres Jr. claimed that the NSC’s Barangay Development Projects (BDP) program for 2025 has a total of 780 development projects slated.
These projects include farm-to-market roads, school buildings, water supply and sanitation, health stations, rural electrification and livelihood projects, all intended to “entice” members of the armed rebellion movements to return to stable living under the fold of the law.
The budget that the NSC is asking for is a quadrupling of the 2024 budget, where the General Appropriations Act (GAA) only approved P2.5 million for each village under the BDP program, for a total of 864 villages.
However, Torres did not say how many villages in the Cordillera region are covered under the appropriation that the NSC is asking for.
Last year, there were 958 village beneficiaries, while it was 1,406 in 2022, and 822 in 2021.