Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. (Photo from the Army’s 4th Infantry Division)
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., commanding general of the Philippine Army, as the next Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff, replacing Gen. Andres Centino.
Centino, the only officer to have been named military chief twice, will continue to serve the president as presidential adviser on the West Philippine Sea.
Brawner, who also attended the University of the Philippines in 1984, graduated second in the 1989 “Makatao” Class of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) and has served the military in various capacities over the past 34 years.
He has been company commander of the 6th Special Forces Company, battalion commander of the 2nd Special Forces Battalion, operations officer of the airborne Special Forces Regiment, chief of staff of the 6th Infantry Division, public affairs chief of the Army; AFP spokesperson and commander of the civil-military operations regiment.
He was one of the key commanders of Task Force Ranao during the five-month terrorist siege of Marawi City in Lanao del Sur in 2017 and was promoted to chief of the Mindanao-based 103rd Infantry Brigade the following year.
Brawner also holds graduate degrees from Ateneo de Manila University, the Asian Institute of Management, the European School of Management at Oxford University, and the US Army War College.
Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Velicaria Garafil said Brawner also previously served as the commandant of cadets in the PMA, “where he played an important role in the total eradication of hazing and maltreatment in the cadet corps.”
Garafil said Brawner also served as commander of the 4th Infantry “Diamond” Division, where he supervised the unit’s combat operations that resulted in “the decisive neutralization of Jorge Madlos, or ‘Ka Oris,’” a top commander of the communist New People’s Army.