NOW: Senate holds plenary deliberations for the 2022 budget of the Department of National Defense.
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Senator Bato Dela Rosa says the completion of the AFP modernization will be pushed back from 2027 to 2028.
It's a one year delay for the completion of the said project. Dela Rosa, who sponsored the DND's budget, has yet to explain the delay.
Replying to
Dela Rosa says the low budget allotment for the defense agency affected the completion of the military modernization.
The senator even shares the military expenditures of SEA countries compared to their GDPs.
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Dela Rosa says the newly installed AFP chief LtGen Centino promised that the insurgency will be gone before Duterte steps down in June.
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Only 7 months left for the Duterte admin to fulfill its vow to quash insurgency, DND data shown that there were at least 232 NPA-initiated incidents for 2020 alone.
59% of the incidents happened in Mindanao, where Duterte's hometown is located.
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Even with the intensified projects of the Duterte admin to counter insurgency, the DND says 43 guerilla fronts remain operational, as of 2021.
This means that the Duterte admin only quashed 27 fronts in almost six years.
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Senator Panfilo Lacson, a former PNP chief, points out the variance or the discrepancy between the NEP version of the DND budget and the House version.
Dela Rosa says it "just increased." Lacson says items should be realigned before there could be an increase.
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Lacson also questions the unused budgets of the PH Army since 2017. Bato says 'procurement challenges' caused the non-utilization of funds.
For 2020 alone, the PH Army has 10,843,100,000 unused funds.
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Dela Rosa shares the parked funds of the PH Army under the PITC.
A total of P5 billion has been parked in the PITC since 2014.
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Since 2007, a total of P15.9 billion has been parked by the PH Army in the PITC.
However, Lacson points out that the PITC only delivered .01% in 2019 and .22% in 2020.
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