The Truth About Duterte’s 2020 Budget

In August, it was disclosed that the proposed 2020 budget of the Philippine government allotted a higher percentage to police, military, and other security forces that are expected to bolster the country’s defenses and President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-crime campaign. Supporters of the president have deemed it critical to continue the journey toward a peaceful and progressive Philippines, but critics have warned that the funding boost could be abused, contributing to corruption and human rights violations.

The police received funding to hire an additional 36,000 personnel and construct 16 new police stations. The controversial Tokhang (anti-drug campaign) was given a separate budget in addition to financial support under at least three Cabinet departments. These decisions underscore Duterte’s intent to continue the “war on drugs” despite its failure to end the illegal drug trade so far and the high number of civilian fatalities in the implementation of Tokhang to date.

The military will continue to receive its annual allocation for modernization programs and its operations are expected to receive a boost as it oversees the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. Several departments are part of the “Whole-of-Nation Approach in Attaining Inclusive and Sustainable Peace,” but the military in tandem with the police will lead operations to end Asia’s longest-running communist rebellion.

Meanwhile, the budget for the office of the president is 21 percent higher compared to 2019. Half of the budget is for confidential, intelligence, and extraordinary funds, which are not itemized. This means the funds can be spent at Duterte’s discretion. Senator Leila M. de Lima questioned the use of funds “that will be spent outside the microscope of audit.”

House Minority Deputy Leader and Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Zarate said the increase in the budget for the police and military could enable the “kill, kill, kill” mentality of the security forces. The Philippine security forces have been accused of responsibility for worsening human rights abuses since Duterte came to power in 2016.

“The 2020 proposed national budget is a war budget. It apparently wants to fund even more repression, the worsening state of impunity, while rewarding human rights violators,” Zarate said in a statement.

Demands for transparency, accountability, and justice will continue to be raised absent an independent probe into the drug war-related killings and other extrajudicial killings targeting activists, farmers, environmental defenders, lawyers, and even religious leaders.

Human rights group Karapatan shared Zarate’s sentiment and added that the higher priority for defense spending could be deployed to suppress dissent. “Our coffers will yet again pay for the riding-in-tandem gunmen, the bombs that will raze communities, the rewards for fake surrenders, the blabbermouths that will twist the stories, and the whole structure of impunity that will leave perpetrators off the hook.”

Duterte’s 2020 budget is expected to be swiftly approved by Congress, where the ruling party has a confident majority. This is also the result of the fresh mandate given by voters in the recent midterm election, which saw the victory of candidates endorsed by the president. But the proposed budget also raises questions as to whether pork barrel projects were illegally inserted in the document. Some senators are worried that the president’s anti-corruption campaign will be undermined if the budget bill contains favored contracts to members of the ruling coalition.

But it is the president himself who also has to answer as to why his office needs to control a significant amount of budget earmarked for “special purpose funds” without being obligated to specify and explain how this is going to be distributed in 2020.

Higher funding for the police and military could be intended primarily to support the government’s peacekeeping efforts in Mindanao, which has been under Martial Law since May 2017. Curiously, the need to modernize the country’s defense capabilities against external threats is not highlighted compared to the government’s aggressive push to defeat the local communist movement and its suspected sympathizers.

The deployment of more troops in rural and urban poor communities could serve several political objectives. It could weaken the influence of suspected communist groups and frustrate the political organizing of opposition forces. The latter is crucial to prevent the rise of a broad movement challenging the human rights accountability of the Duterte government.

Will the 2020 budget convert the country into a warzone pitting police and soldiers against communists and other “enemies of the state”? Perhaps the government will respond by pointing out that its priority is the completion of infrastructure projects and other development programs. But based on what the budget bill shows, it is clear the government is ready to spend more for the police and military as it continues to defend a presidency that appears to be strong and popular, and yet is continually hounded by credible allegations of corruption, abuses of power, and a willful refusal to assert the country’s patrimony and sovereignty.