PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III has appointed Major General Eduardo Año as the new commander of the 85,000-strong Philippine Army, the Inquirer learned on Tuesday.
The change of command ceremony will take place Wednesday at the Army headquarters in Fort Bonifacio.
Defense spokesperson Peter Galvez confirmed the information the Inquirer received from various government and military sources.
Año takes over the post vacated by Lieutenant General Hernando Iriberri, whom President Aquino named as the new Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff last week.
Iriberri and Año are both from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1983.
Año is currently head of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, which dealt the most recent blow against the communist insurgency after his officers and men killed revered New People’s Army commander Leoncio Pitao alias Kumander Parago in an encounter on June 28 in Barangay Panalom in Paquibato District.
Parago was the most prominent rebel leader in Southern Mindanao.
Año was also the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines chief when combined forces of the military and police arrested Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
While government credits his work against the four decades old communist insurgency—the country’s most prevalent internal security problem—the case of missing activist Jonas Burgos is arguably Año’s biggest baggage.
Año reiterated that he was never involved in the disappearance of Burgos nearly eight years ago, noting that the Department of Justice had dismissed the arbitrary detention charges filed against him by Burgos’ mother, Edita.
Burgos, an activist-farmer and son of the late press freedom icon Jose Burgos Jr., was believed to have been abducted by soldiers on April 28, 2007 while eating at a fast-food restaurant in a Quezon City mall.
Other contenders for the Army chief post were Southern Luzon commander Major General Ricardo Visaya, 3rd Infantry Division chief Maj. Gen. Rey Leonardo Guerrero; and 7th Infantry Division chief Maj. Gen. Glorioso Miranda.
Visaya and Miranda are also from PMA Class ’83 while Guerrero is a graduate of class ’84.