MANILA, Philippines — If the national government will just realign half or even one-third of the P19.1 billion proposed budget of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) next year, it will go a long way in the production go self-learning modules (SLMs) that students can use. This was according to ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro on Thursday as she backed calls to realign the budget of the controversial NTF-ELCAC, which has been making headlines recently in relation to red-tagging issues, to basic services. ADVERTISEMENT“Education will be one of the sectors which can benefit from the realignment of funds from the terrorist-tagging task force,” Castro, a member of the House of Representatives’ Makabayan bloc, said in a statement. The rest of funds of the NTF-ELCAC, Castro said, should go to the medical and socio-economic needs of the people including those in disaster-prone areas. “Every time the country is hit by natural calamities, schools are the first evacuation centers, and teachers and non-teaching personnel are the first responders,” Castro said.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer November 05, 2020 14:47 UTC