President Duterte has appointed Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo T. Eleazar as the 26th Chief of the more than 220,000-strong Philippine National Police (PNP).
But who is he?
Guillor, as he is known by his mistah and in the PNP, was awarded with the Latin honor cum laude when he graduated at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA). He was actually the Top 4 of the graduating PMA ‘Hinirang’ Class of 1987.
A native of Tagkawayan town of Quezon, he decided to take the PMA entrance examination as an acceptance to the challenge of his father Victor, a World War II veteran, who wanted at least one of his children to be in the uniformed service.
His first assignments was in communist rebel-infested areas of Southern Tagalog region where he was given various assignments that were mostly on intelligence-gathering and combat operations.
In 1992, he joined a PNP peacekeeping mission where he was named as the Civilian Police operations officer of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Camboadia (UNTAC) in Kandal province. It was also in his stint in UNTAC that he was made air and naval movement coordinator and protocol officer and later liaison officer at the UN Police Liaison Office in Cambodia.
When he returned in 1996, he was named as the intelligence and operations officer of the Transportation Management Division 4 of the Traffic Management Command. He was eventually designated as the operations officer and later assistant regional chief of the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) PNP Traffic Management Group.
In 1998, he was named as the chief of police of San Pedro, Laguna and two years later, he was assigned to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) where he earned his rank as Lieutenant Colonel, then Police Superintendent.
He also served as a comptroller for Police Regional Office 6 in Western Visayas and in Police Regional Office 3 in Central Luzon.
Eleazar earned his first star when he was the director of the Quezon City Police District. He was later transferred as the regional director of the CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) and eventually named as the director of the National Capital Region Police Office where he earned his second star, or the rank of Police Major General.
As NCRPO director, Eleazar initiated various internal cleansing programs against erring cops involved in illegal drugs trade, and conducted surprise inspections to check on the cleanliness of every police stations and if the policemen on-duty were doing their job.
Eleazar was also described as the most social media active senior police official, which is attributed to his former assignment as head of the Anti-Cybercrime Group. He would always encourage his commanders to immediately on viral videos involving erring policemen and made sure that all complaints lodged through social media and phone calls through police hotlines were all acted upon.
He also initiated the proper data banking on erring policemen in an attempt to prevent policemen dismissed from the service due to illegal drugs involvement from being reinstated in the police service.
In the first 39 months of the current administration where he was a key force in the NCRPO, crime rate in Metro Manila went down by a record 62 percent compared to the last 39 months of the previous administration
As Metro Manila top cop, he led the NCRPO to get its first ever Best Police Regional Police Office award.
When the lockdown measures were implemented for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Eleazar supervised the strict implementation of quarantine rules as he was then designated as the commander of the Joint Task Force COVID Shield. He was the concurrent number three man of the PNP then, or as PNP deputy chief for Operations.
He then turned into the face of the government’s implementation of quarantine rules as he was always invited in the media every time there was new security measures to be implemented in connection with the community quarantine.
When he was named as the number two man of the PNP, or as deputy chief for Administration, he oversaw the operations to ensure the welfare of PNP personnel in the frontline quarantine rules implementation, especially those who were would be infected by the coronavirus, as commander of the PNP Administrative Support for COVD-19 Task Force (ASCOTF).
He attended various courses during his junior years and as a middle-ranking officer that includes those related to intelligence, anti-drugs operations, terrorism, anti-kidnapping and those related to money-laundering and tracking down finance fraudsters. He has a Master’s degree in Public Administration at the Philippine Christian University.
Eleazar is a recipient of more than 200 medals that include two from the United Nations and at least six from the military. He is also a recipient of the Metrobank’s Awards for Continuing Excellence in Service, the Presidential Lingkod ng Bayan award in Metro Manila, the Top Cavalier Award and Man of the Year of a media entity.