Mabalacat City gets 1st female police chief; donates assault rifles

Mabalacat City Mayor Crisostomo Garbo (2nd from right), along with Lt. Col. Soledad Elefanio, Brig. Gen. Narciso Domingo and Col. Arnold Thomas Ibay show the newly bought AR-15 rifles. Photo from the Mabalacat City Police Office

MABALACAT CITY, Pampanga –– The city government here turned over Tuesday 10 units of newly bought caliber 5.56mm AR-15 assault rifles to the Pampanga police.

The turnover coincided with the designation of the first-ever female chief of police in this city.

Brig. Gen. Valeriano de Leon, Central Luzon police director, designated Lt. Col. Soledad Legaspi Elefanio as officer-in-charge of the Mabalacat police, replacing Lt. Col. Rossel Cejas, who was assigned to the Philippine National Police Drug Enforcement Group.

Mayor Crisostomo Garbo formally turned over the assault rifles to Central Luzon police deputy regional director for administration Brig. Gen. Narciso Domingo, Pampanga police director Col. Arnold Thomas Ibay, and Elefanio in the City Hall here.

Garbo said the brand new AR-15 assault rifles are part of the local government’s support to the police’s anti-criminality measures and maintenance of peace and order, particularly in this city.

Elefanio, the current public relations officer of the Central Luzon police, was former division chief of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Office and assistant chief of the anti-trafficking division of the PNP Women and Children Protection Center.

LZB