Five months after the removal of Magtanggol Gatdula as National Bureau of Investigation director, President Benigno Aquino III has yet to choose his permanent replacement in the agency.

 

Asked if filling up the vacancy is a priority of the President, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said there is “an officer-in-charge that is sitting and is running the daily affairs of the NBI.”

 

“What the President usually balances when it comes to vacancies ‘yung urgency, of course, to fill the position. But that is balance with finding somebody who can effectively fill that position and is qualified,” Valte added.

 

Valte was unaware if a shortlist of the candidates has been given to the Prsident.

 

“We have not been advised of any announcements relative to the appointment to the NBI director position,” she further said. 

 

In January, Aquino sacked Gatdula after the latter was implicated in the alleged kidnapping and extortion on an undocumented Japanese national arrested by the bureau.

Malacañang earlier said the President wants someone 'tough and clean' to be the next NBI director.

 

In March, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, whose department has supervision over the NBI, said she has come up with a list of five personalities to be the next director.

 

Among the five short-listed nominees is NBI officer-in-charge Nonnatus Rojas. She did not identify the four others, but said they were "outsiders" or people not from the bureau. — Amita Legaspi/RSJ, GMA News