Bartolome, seen as new PNP chief, now sits as OIC

For a week now, Deputy Director General Nicanor Bartolome has been taking the reins at the Philippine National Police (PNP) as officer-in-charge (OIC) while his boss, outgoing Director General Raul M. Bacalzo, is abroad.

But Bartolome, the rumored front-runner among the candidates to replace Bacalzo, who retires next month, denied on Thursday that his OIC status is a virtual dress rehearsal for his presumptive next appointment.

“I was the one available; therefore it was me [who got the assignment],” he said, noting that the two other three-star generals and his rivals to the post, Deputy Director Generals Benjamin Belarmino and Raul Castañeda, are also out of the country.

It was the first time that Bartolome served as the acting PNP chief.

In a briefing that followed a lunch he hosted for the PNP Press Corps, Bartolome played it coy when asked about the speculations that followed President Aquino’s announcement he would name Bacalzo’s replacement soon.

“Perhaps because the command group is being considered. Numbers 2, 3, and 4 (Belarmino, Castañeda and he) are usually part of the short list. Because of that, there’s all sorts of speculations. But this is a normal procedure in the PNP,” he said.

The President earlier said he was studying a short list of candidates but did not name anyone. Aside from the three deputy director generals, another name mentioned in the rumor mill is Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Director Samuel Pagdilao Jr.

At the lunch, Bartolome merely smiled at the media’s teasing about his supposed future appointment and deflected persistent questions about it. “No, that’s not it,” he insisted when a radio reporter asked if the lunch was “congratulatory.”

A member of the Philippine Military Academy’s Class of 1980, he said taking the OIC assignment was similar to his current position.

“It’s like my job. As chief of the directorial staff, I also coordinate closely with the Chief PNP, mostly on administrative matters. All the documents that will reach the Chief PNP will pass my office first. It’s the same system now,” he said.