CA okays appointment of Comelec exec, AFP general

A military official and a commissioner of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) have been confirmed by the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA).

The CA unanimously approved in the plenary on Wednesday the nomination of Roy Devesa to the rank of Major General in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

The ad interim appointment of Comelec Commissioner Antonio Tongio Kho Jr. also got the nod of the CA.

While deliberating on his nomination at the CA’s committee on national defense, opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros asked Devesa about the alleged “Red October” ouster plot against President Rodrigo Duterte.

Hontiveros insisted that the opposition is not out to overthrow the President just because they are raising “constructive criticisms” or proposing positive alternatives.”

“I keep saying, we’re not trying to oust the President. Nobody is even calling on him to resign,” she said.

“There’s no impeachment complaint in the House (of Representatives), and we’re not plotting any ouster,” the senator added.

But as commander of the AFP’s Training and Doctrine Command (Tradoc), Devesa said he had no access to information about the supposed plot.

“At Tradoc, as part of our education, we do continually assess the operational environment that our soldiers will be fielded once they go out of the school. And we continue to define the adversaries that we are facing,” he said.

“And I’d like to assure you that in the process of defining the adversaries that we are facing, we thoroughly evaluate, analyze all the information that we have and share them to our students and our soldiers so that when they go out in the field, we make sure that they can properly identify which are really the armed combatants and the non-armed combatants that we are dealing with,” Devesa added. /cbb