Three senior officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) with a rank of major general (two-star) were promoted to the next higher rank on Thursday, Jan. 12.
AFP Chief of Staff, Gen. Andres Centino presided over the donning of ranks to the newly promoted officials namely Lt. Gen. Arthur Cordura, AFP Vice Chief of Staff; Lt. Gen. Efren Baluyot, Commander of Southern Luzon Command (SOLCOM); and Vice Admiral Toribio Adaci Jr., Flag Officer in Command of the Philippine Navy (PN).
“We grant or bestow promotion to deserving personnel of our organization who have exhibited excellent performance of their duties, and have demonstrated their competence and propensity to do more,” Centino said.
“It is incumbent upon them to continue serving our institution, our country, and our people in the best possible ways they can,” he added.
The promotion is seen as among the solutions of the Department of National Defense (DND) to the issues brought up by senior military officials whose ranks remained stagnant due to the implementation of Republic Act 11709. The law sets a three-year fixed term for military officers who are occupying major posts.
This very same law was thought to be the reason of the alleged unrest within the military.
However, DND Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. denied the existence of such unrest.
“There is no truth on the unrest, maybe mayroong tinatawag tayong (maybe we have what we call) some valid issues but we are resolving it now. Among these are some delays on promotion,” he said.
Galvez disclosed that he already raised the delays on promotion of senior officials to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who approves or rejects such promotions.
“What we intend to do is to fastrack some remaining promotions and also the deployments of the different commanders,” the Defense chief said.