PNoy replaces 2 NBI deputy directors, installs 4 new ones

President Benigno Aquino III has replaced two National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) deputy directors, half a year after Justice Secretary Leila de Lima admitted that several NBI deputy directors have "trust and integrity issues." 

 

De Lima said the two NBI deputy directors replaced were NBI Deputy Director for Intelligence Service Reynaldo Esmeralda and NBI Deputy Director for Special Investigation Services Ruel Lasala.

 

Esmeralda will be replaced by lawyer Ricardo Pangan Jr., 64. Currently the regional director of the NBI-Ilocos regional office, Pangan worked as a patrolman from 1974 to 1978 in the Baguio city police department. He received criminal justice education from the University of Virginia in 1977. 

 

Lasala will be replaced by lawyer Antonio Pagatpat, who started his government service in the Sangguniang Bayan in Samar. He joined the NBI in 1990 and is currently the regional director of the NBI-Cebu regional office.

 

The other two appointments were meant to fill the vacancies created by the promotion of former NBI Deputy Director for Regional Operation Services (DDROS) Virgilio Mendez as NBI director; and the retirement of NBI Deputy Director Rickson Chiong last November 2013. 

 

Replacing Chiong as deputy director for technical service is lawyer Edward Villarta, currently officer-in-charge at the Office of the Deputy Director for Technical Service. Villarta has been in government service for the last 34 years, 12 years of them as a regional NBI director.

 

According to the Department of Justice, Villarta actively participated in the Maguindanao massacre investigation and has even been given the Outstanding Case Award for his role in the investigation of the death of broadcaster Ted Failon's wife Trinidad Arteche-Etong.

 

Assuming the post vacated by Mendez as DDROS is 50-year-old Jose Doloiras, a certified public accountant and a career service officer IV. Before working for the NBI in 1988, Doloiras was with the Department of Budget and Management. He is currently assistant regional director of the NBI-Cebu regional office.

 

"We have been talking about revitalizing the NBI since the very beginning of the Aquino administration. That is how top priority ensuring integrity and competence of our nation's premier investigative agency has always been," said De Lima in a statement.

 

"We have made some considerable headway over the last three and a half years, and I truly believe that each change, no matter how difficult and even painful it may have been for the Bureau and the Department of Justice to weather, has always been a necessary step to achieving what is best for the agency, the department, and the nation as a whole," she added.

 

The new deputy directors will be joining Mendez, assistant director Medardo de Lemos, and Deputy Directors Edmund Arugay and Rafael Ragos.

 

Apart from the new appointments, the DOJ also announced several reorganizational changes within the directorial staff of the NBI. —KG, GMA News