NTF-ELCAC, BUWAGIN! Pondo sa Serbisyo, Hindi sa Pasismo!

December 4, 2025 - Katribu Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas joined allied human rights organizations today in renewing the urgent call to abolish the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in a protest in front of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Quezon City. Katribu denounced the task force’s seventh year of institutionalized red-tagging, harassment, and attacks against Indigenous Peoples and Moro communities.

“NTF-ELCAC has weaponized public funds to vilify, criminalize, and suppress Indigenous communities resisting destructive projects,” said Funa-ay Claver, spokesperson of Katribu. “For seven years, this task force has operated as a machinery of intimidation and violence, not peace and development.”

Claver stressed that NTF-ELCAC continues to pave the way for mining, dams, ecotourism projects, mallification, and large-scale plantations by labeling Indigenous and Moro leaders as “criminals” or “terrorists.” According to her, this deliberate vilification clears the path for foreign corporations and local landlords to encroach on ancestral lands and territories with impunity.

Katribu pointed to the fatal consequences of state-sponsored red-tagging. Claver highlighted several recent cases, including:

• The Tumandok massacre, where community leaders opposing the Jalaur Mega Dam in Panay were red-tagged prior to being killed in December 2020.

• Lumad teacher Chad Booc, repeatedly red-tagged before being killed by the military in New Bataan, Davao de Oro in 2022.

“These killings are not isolated incidents,” Claver said. “They are the direct outcome of a system that treats Indigenous resistance as enemy of the state.”

Claver also condemned the NTF-ELCAC’s role in intensifying militarization by integrating the military, police, and other state forces into Indigenous communities under the guise of “peace and development.”

She further criticized the complicity of agencies like the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), which she said has aligned itself with the NTF-ELCAC despite its mandate to uphold Indigenous rights.

“The NCIP has abandoned its duty,” Claver asserted. “Instead of defending Indigenous Peoples, its officials are enabling corporate entry into our ancestral domains, often for personal gain.”

With the NTF-ELCAC seeking an ₱8-billion budget for its 2026 Barangay Development Program (BDP), Katribu asserts that the program serves as another mechanism for corruption.

“BDP is not development, it’s a farm-to-pocket scheme,” Claver said. “Every peso funneled into NTF-ELCAC is a peso stolen from education, healthcare, and genuine services long denied to Indigenous and Moro communities.”

Katribu emphasized that the demand to abolish the NTF-ELCAC is the call of the Filipino people. “We are all being deceived, robbed, and silenced by this task force and the Marcos-Duterte administration. Abolishing NTF-ELCAC is essential to reclaiming our rights, our lands, and our future," Claver concluded.

Reference:

Funa-ay Claver

Spokesperson, Katribu