Ebdane: I can go anytime

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. is ready to leave the force if President Arroyo no longer needs his services.

"I serve at the pleasure of the President. I can go anytime. I am willing to go," Ebdane said in a phone interview.

Ebdane was reacting to a STAR report about a new "open-door policy" on the PNP’s top position. The policy supposedly calls for Ebdane to be replaced by a series of successors, each serving brief three-month stints.

What appears to have gotten the PNP chief’s goat was the report’s less than flattering title: "Arroyo to ax Ebdane?"

"Why should I be axed? I have done nothing wrong!" Ebdane told The STAR.

Without conceding that he will be eased out before his mandatory retirement in December, Ebdane said that he was submitting the profiles of several PNP senior officers to Mrs. Arroyo.

Possibly in the list are PNP deputy director for administration Edgar Aglipay, PNP deputy director for operations Virtus Gil, Philippine Center for Transnational Crime chief Reynaldo Velasco, Directorial Staff chief Enrique Galang, and Directorate for Operations chief Avelino Razon.

Aglipay will retire on Sept. 13, while Velasco, the most senior of the three-star-rank officers, will retire on May 22 next year.

But given a choice Ebdane prefers his successor to be more permanent, to ensure "continuity" in the PNP.

"Anybody who does not have a year (left in the service) should not be appointed… I will not recommend anybody. I will just inform the President of their profiles," he said.

Ebdane wouldn’t comment when asked if he was being offered a Cabinet post under the Arroyo administration. But he joked about going into "farming" when he bows out of office, early or otherwise.