Police Lt. Gen. Camilo Cascolan is the next chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and is expected to promote a trustworthy and professional organization, Malacañang announced Tuesday, September 1.
Cascolan, currently the PNP Deputy Chief for Administration, will take the place of Gen. Archie Gamboa, who will retire from the service on Wednesday, September 2.
"The Palace confirms that Police Lt. Gen. Camilo Cascolan has been appointed by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte to be the new Chief of the Philippine National Police effective tomorrow, September 2, 2020,” Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said.
"We are confident that the incoming Chief of the PNP would continue the significant strides made by his predecessors in making the PNP a professional organization worthy of our people's trust,” he said.
The appointment came a few hours after Roque announced Cascolan would serve as officer-in-charge of the PNP when Gamboa retires.
In his televised briefing Tuesday, Roque initially claimed he was supposed to announce the new PNP chief but was asked to defer the announcement.
Cascolan, a member of the Philippine Military Academy class of 1986, currently holds the second highest post in the PNP. He will reach the mandatory retirement age of 56 in November.
He will be the fourth member of the PMA Class 1986 to hold the highest police position.
The top PNP post has been occupied by PMA Class 1986 since Duterte assumed the presidency in July 2016, starting with now Sen. Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa, Oscar Albayalde and then Gamboa.
Cascolan is a native of Baguio City and a product of the Maryknoll Convent School for his elementary education and the University of the Philippines Baguio High School.
His baptism of fire as a fresh PMA graduate was in Parang, Maguindanao which was one of the battlegrounds between the government and the Moro secessionist groups.
Cascolan spent almost all his junior and middle rank years in Western Visayas where he occupied various posts starting as member of the now defunct Philippine Constabulary in Iloilo in 1988 until up to being the chief of police of the Balasan Police Station in Iloilo in 1998.
He was assigned to the PNP Headquarters at Camp Crame in Quezon City in 1999 as head of the Special Research Division of the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime, a position he held until January 2001.
He then held various assignments that include chief of police of Taguig City, provincial director of then Compostela Valley Province, and the number two man of Western Visayas regional police wherein he earned his first star.
He was named PNP Director for Operations and later held the position as Regional Director of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) starting in April 2018. It was in that period when he conceptualized assigning policemen near their residences to make them more effective.
He also initiated the eight-hour work for policemen, arguing that Metro Manila policemen would do their job well if they are well-rested.
As a senior police official, he supervised and oversaw the transfer of the PNP Academy and other training programs for new policemen from the Philippine Public Safety College to the PNP. He is also the proponent of the Camp Crame Development Plan which involves the decentralization of some offices within Camp Crame in Quezon City to the provinces.
As the head of the Directorate for Operations, Cascolan crafted the memorandum circular Double Barrel of the anti-drugs campaign Oplan Tokhang.
He also conceptualized the Enhanced Managing Police Operations, an operational strategy against criminality, terrorism and internal security with an emphasis on home defense security concept.
Cascolan is also credited for the creation of the E-WPIS, or the Wanted Person Information System and the e-rogue which gives police officers access to the profile of criminal elements online.