Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Gen. Debold Sinas designated on Friday, April 16, Police Brig. Gen. Ronaldo Olay as the organization's new spokesperson.
Olay replaced outgoing Public Information Office (PIO) chief, Police Brig. Gen. Ildebrandi Usana, who is set to retire from the service on April 20 upon turning 56 years old.
In his farewell message, Usana said that he will be "signing off" to give way to another occupant of the chief PIO post "who is far better and more competent to provide the information that it needs with support from our media friends."
Olay is a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) "Bigkis-Lahi" Class of 1990. He is a "mistah" or classmate of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson, Major Gen. Edgard Arevalo.
Olay was described by Arevalo as "very diligent and professional," and "an asset to the PNP."
Olay was erstwhile the deputy director of the PNP Directorate for Operations. He also served as the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) deputy regional director for administration (DRDA).
He briefly served as the director of the PNP Health Service and deputy director for comptrollership in 2020.
From 2014 to 2016, Olay served as the provincial director of the Cagayan Police Provincial Office, director of the Provincial Mobile Force Battalion of Batangas, head of the Criminal Investigation and District Group (CIDG) district office in Eastern Metro Manila, and assistant chief of the CIDG Anti-Fraud and Commercial Crimes Division (AFCCD).
He also served at the PNP Maritime Group and Headquarters Support Service (HSS) in various capacities.
He received formal training on intelligence and comptrollership in the PNP, Maritime Law Enforcement in Malaysia, Supervisory Criminal Investigation Course in Thailand, and commercial crimes investigation in Singapore and the United States (US) Embassy in Manila.