CONTRARY to speculations, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro will not be affected by the impending Cabinet revamp, President Arroyo said on Tuesday night.

“Gilbert is not included,” the President told reporters in an interview, when asked whether the defense chief would be replaced by Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Armed Forces chief of staff, who will retire this month.

Arroyo added that “civilian supremacy” will continue to reign in the defense department under Teodoro’s helm.

The President declined to answer any more questions about the impending revamp saying, “The rest will remain a secret.”

After she confirmed that there will be a Cabinet revamp in May, there have been speculations that Teodoro will replace the ailing Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who would retire.

The President, however, said that Gonzalez, contrary to speculations, is not included in the forthcoming Cabinet revamp.

“He [Gonzalez] is not included in the ‘secret,’” she told inquiring reporters at the Department of Justice building, where she followed up on cases against rice smugglers and hoarders later on Wednesday.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who is rumored to be up for transfer to an ambassadorial post, said the President has not discussed with him any such plan.

Reports said that Ermita has been feuding with Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno over policy and management style differences.

The President is expected to make changes in her official family once the one-year appointment ban on losing candidates in the last national elections lapses on May 14, 2008.

The revamp will reportedly benefit some of the losing administration bets in the 2007 senatorial elections, among them, former presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor, former Lakas Rep. Prospero Pichay of Surigao del Sur and former senators Teresa Aquino-Oreta, Vicente Sotto III and Ralph Recto.

Pichay was rumored to be the incoming customs commissioner, Oreta the next education secretary, Sotto the next chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board and Recto is touted to be appointed to the finance department.

Puno, on the other hand, said he prefers to remain in the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG)  than be transferred to another department, because his expertise is in the DILG, where he had been working since the time of former President Marcos.

“Based on my experience, I am best equipped for this department...if you put me in [the Department of] Energy, I will be a total idiot there,” he said.

Puno’s predecessor is Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes.

Cops on alert for rallies nationwide

THE National Police went on heightened alert on Wednesday in preparation for the expected mass actions that are usually held during Labor Day.

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Government forces captured a “bomb factory” of the Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) and Abu Sayyaf bandits in Sulu before noon on Wednesday.

ERRING officials of Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment Co. (ZTE) of China could be held liable for bribery in connection with the multimillion-peso kickbacks paid in advance to alleged Malacañang brokers after ZTE bagged the aborted $329-million contract to build a national broadband network (NBN) here, the Senate chief investigator in the NBN-ZTE scandal said on Wednesday.

“ON a final note, it must be stated that the continuing battle of which group should sit in the governing body of the AMWSLAI has caused doubts and uncertainties in the minds of the hundred of thousands who have invested their life savings therein.

A TOP British official will visit the Philippines this weekend to find out how to further strengthen relations with particular focus on Britain’s investments in the clean development mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol.

SENATE Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. on Wednesday moved to block the administration’s plan to seize control of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), warning that “it is not a good idea for government to take over private enterprises.”

CONTRARY to speculations, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro will not be affected by the impending Cabinet revamp, President Arroyo said on Tuesday night.