He is called the police’s version of the Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) and now, Police Lt. Gen. Dionardo Bernardo Carlos will be ruling over the 222,000-strong Philippine National Police (PNP).
Carlos will take over the leadership of the PNP on November 13, the retirement age of Police General Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar whom he considers as a big brother as they are both from the Quezon province.
In the sea, Carlos has undergone rigorous training that earned him expertise in rescue diving while he also dominated the air through his skydiving skills. In land, the incoming Chief PNP has a title of chief master rider of motorcycles.
A member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class 1988, Carlos is currently the number four man of the PNP, or the Chief of the Directorial Staff.
Carlos served as the spokesperson of the PNP under then Chief PNP and now Sen. Ronaldo “Bato” dela Rosa. The last PNP spokesman appointed as Chief PNP was retired police general Nicanor Bartolome.
Early years
Carlos was born in Lucena City, Quezon to parents Osmundo de Ocampo Carlos, a marine biologist, of Tayabas, Quezon ; and Erlinda Bernardo, a registered nurse from Guiuan, Eastern Samar.
He spent his early childhood years in Guiuan town before he moved to Lucena City where he finished his elementary education with academic excellence for having the highest final average among the class and graduated class salutatorian at the Luzonian University Foundation (now the Manuel S. Enverga University) in also in Lucena City.
He spent one year at the University of the Philippines Diliman Campus before he entered the Philippine Military Academy in 1984. He graduated in 1988.
Early military career
He started his military career after his graduation in 1988 as a young lieutenant assigned at the Camp Guillermo Nakar in Lucena City tasked to run after communist rebels in the province and nearby areas.
After serving four years in Southern Luzon, Carlos joined an international peacekeeping mission in Cambodia where he was part of the Philippine Contingent to the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) from 1992 to 1993.
He and eight other Filipino peacekeepers were recognized for bravery by the UNTAC leadership and were awarded with medals and commendations after he led them return from Phnom Penh to their duty stations in Prey Veng Province during the attempt of the rebels to annex the eastern portion of the country to Vietnam.
In 1994, he joined the PNP’s elite Special Action Force where he developed his counter-terrorism and special operations skills for six years.
Second UN Mission and anti-drugs stint
Carlos again joined the UN Mission in East Timor as part of the six-man PNP’s Advance Team served at the Mission’s Joint Operation Centre (JOC) in Dili, East Timor.
He continued his peacekeeping mission in East Timor as the Operations Officer at the UNTAET Induction and also served as member of the UN Special Assistance Team (UNSAT) who travelled to various countries to evaluate and test volunteers and peacekeepers for their fitness to join UN missions.
After his return, he joined the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in 2000 as one of the pioneers of the new agency while PDEA was on its transition where he served as the agency’s Deputy Intelligence Chief working closely with the foreign counterparts from the United States DEA, Australian Federal Police, Hongkong Narcotics Bureau and the Royal Malaysian Police.
Carlos then returned to the PNP through its now defunct Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AIDSOTF) before he returned to regular crime-fighting and community engagements as City Police Chief of Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental from 2006 to 2008.
Trainings and Awards
Carlos acquired trainings abroad like Advance Management Course, Crisis Response Team Training, Supervisory Criminal Investigation Course and Criminal Intelligence Analysis Course to name a few.
He also worked with his counterparts from United States DEA, US Marshals, FBI, and Australian Federal Police.
Carlos is a Metrobank Foundation Incorporated’s 2009 Country’s Outstanding Policemen in Service (COPS) lifetime achievement awardee.
In 2013 he was recognized as Honorable and Outstanding Police Enforcer (HOPE) awardee by JCI Manila.
He also received the Award for Continuing Excellence in Service (ACES) in 2014 and conferred by the Civil Service Commission as 2019 Dangal ng Bayan in Eastern Visayas.
Carlos holds two Master’s Degrees in Management from the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and the Philippine Christian University (PCU).
He is elder brother to Rear Admiral Alberto B Carlos of the Philippine Navy.
Recently, he was conferred by Lucena City local government unit as one of the Natatanging Lucenahin 2021 awardees, notwithstanding his numerous awards and medals of bravery, efficiency, and other distinction in the fields of Police Operations, Investigation, Intelligence and Community Relations.