ZAMBOANGA CITY, 25 June 2005 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday named army commander Lt. Gen. Generoso Senga as the incoming military chief of staff. He will succeed Gen. Efren Abu, who is due to retire, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said.
Maj. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, commander of the military’s elite Special Operations Command, was named army chief.
Abu was supposed to retire yesterday but the president extended his term until August to ensure smooth transition of the military leadership, Bunye said.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita acknowledged on Thursday that a turnover of command had to be postponed in view of scheduled protests by Arroyo’s critics and reported plans to destabilize the government.
Military officials and soldiers in the Southern Philippines said they supported the appointment of Senga and Esperon, both decorated combat officers, who led troops in fighting insurgents in the strife-torn region in previous years.
Before becoming army chief, Senga served as AFP deputy chief of staff for operations, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, commander of the army’s counterterrorism group, and chief of the Southern Command.
Senga was a 1972 graduate of the prestigious Philippine Military Academy. He has a master’s degree in business administration from Ateneo de Manila University and completed two years of law in the same university.
Esperon, a graduate of the PMA Class 1974, served as the Presidential Security Group commander during the Ramos administration, and many other positions in the military until he was assigned as army commander in the southern Philippines in the 1990s.
