NCRPO’s Eleazar bags plum post in PNP HQ as generals get new gigs

National Capital Region Police Office director Police Major General Guillermo Eleazar has been promoted to lead the directorial staff of the PNP as its chief.

Police Brigadier General Debold Sinas, the police regional director in Central Visayas, will take over the reins of the PNP in Metro Manila.

According to PNP spokesman Police Brigadier General Bernard Banac, the following officers will also have new assignments in the directorial staff.

Police Lieutenant General Francisco Archie Gamboa will be the deputy chief for administration while Police Lieutenant General Camilo Pancratius Cascolan will be the deputy chief for operations.

Cascolan is the current chief of the directorial staff; Gamboa, the deputy chief for operations.

The new assignments of police generals came weeks before PNP chief Police General Oscar Albayalde retires on November 8.

It also came while the PNP is embroiled in a controversy over the "ninja cops", or police officers involved in selling confiscated illegal drugs back into the market.

Albayalde himself is being accused of asking that the dismissal of 13 of his men in the Pampanga police in 2013 not be implemented.

The 13 allegedly violated the rules in the conduct of drug operations in a Pampanga subidvision in November of that year.

They are suspected of only declaring the confiscation of more than 30 kilos of shabu when they supposedly seized 200.

They are also suspected of freeing alleged drug lord Johnson Lee in exchange for P50 million.

Albayalde himself is facing accusations of intervening in the implementation of dismissal order against the 13 policemen, who have since been demoted instead of being axed from the service. 

He also allegedly told a police general that he got a little amount from the anomalous drug operations in Pampanga.

The PNP chief has denied the accusations.

The reshuffle in the police force was due to the retirement of Police Lieutenant General Fernando Mendez Jr., the current Deputy Chief PNP for Administration.

Mendez is set to retire on October 11. —Anna Felicia Bajo/NB, GMA News