GMA aide is new ISAFP chief

President Arroyo named her senior military aide yesterday as the new chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP).

Commodore Leonardo Calderon took over the ISAFP helm from Brig. Gen. Marlu Quevedo, who bowed out of military service after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 56 yesterday.

Calderon, a member of Philippine Military Academy Class ’76, was formally installed as ISAFP head by Armed Forces chief Gen. Generoso Senga in simple turnover rites at the ISAFP headquarters at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.

"He is a professional officer and gentleman," AFP spokesman Col. Tristan Kison said. "He will contribute professionalism to the intelligence service."

Calderon was to have assumed the top ISAFP post a year ago, but due to controversies hounding the military intelligence community, the AFP leadership thought it wise for Quevedo to handle the problem.

The ISAFP was tagged as the source of the "Hello, Garci" tapes last June, leading to a political crisis that rocked the administration.

In the wiretapped recordings, Mrs. Arroyo was purportedly caught talking to former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano about plans to rig the results of the May 2004 presidential elections.

Former National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) deputy director Samuel Ong, who made public what he called the "mother" of all the tapes, claimed he got them from T/Sgt. Vidal Doble, an ISAFP agent.

Doble denied Ong’s allegations when he was taken into military custody after briefly seeking refuge with Ong at the San Carlos Seminary in Guadalupe Viejo, Makati City.

At the height of the controversy, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita announced that Calderon would take over from Quevedo by October.

But for unexplained reasons, Quevedo stayed on as ISAFP chief until his retirement yesterday.

Calderon is the younger brother of Deputy Director Oscar Calderon, the No. 2 man at the Philippine National Police (PNP), being the deputy chief for administration.

The Calderon brothers are relatives of Mrs. Arroyo. — Jaime Laude