Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Prestoza is new military spy chief
PORO POINT, La Union -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo named Presidential Security Group (PSG) commander Romeo Prestoza as the new chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP).
Prestoza will replace Brigadier General Arsenio Arugay who would move to the AFP-National Capital Region Command vice Major General Fernando Mesa who would retire on June 2.
Prestoza, who confirmed his appointment Monday night during an informal media interaction, would assume his new assignment on June 3.
A member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1978, the PMA adoptive class of the President, Prestoza was the ISAFP deputy chief and concurrent chairman of the ISAFP personnel management board and chief of the ISAFP ethical standard and public accountability office prior to his assumption of the PSG post on July 12, 2006.
Among those considered to succeed him as PSG chief are 250th Presidential Airlift Wing commander Celedono Boquirin and Presidential Senior Military Aide Carlos Clet.
Prestoza was a flight commander at the Philippine Air Force Flying School at the San Fernando Air Base in Lipa City before he was assigned to the ISAFP. He had also served as special projects officer, operations officer, finance officer, assistant director for academics/athletics, and chief of the operations and intelligence division of ISAFP.
He was also the commander of the technical group of the Presidential Task Force on Intelligence and Counter-intelligence, chief operations division of the Presidential Task Force on Anti-Smuggling (Task Force Aduana), and commander of the Anti-Kidnapping Task Force.
He had also been sent to Tokyo in Japan as the Philippine Force Representative to the United Nations Command, and to Washington as the Air attaché. (JMR/Sunnex)
