PORO POINT, La Union—President Arroyo has chosen the commander of the Presidential Security Group (PSG), Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, to be the new chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp).

Prestoza confirmed his appointment to Malacañang reporters who were in the province to cover Arroyo’s engagements there, including a Cabinet meeting at the provincial capitol in San Fernando City.

Prestoza will replace Brig. Gen. Arsenio Arugay, who will be moved to the National Capital Region Command to fill in the vacancy to be left by Maj. Gen. Fernando Mesa, who is due to retire on June 2.

Prestoza is expected to be replaced in the PSG by either Col. Carlos Clet, the President’s Senior Military Aide, or Brig. Gen. Celedonio Boquiren, head of the Air Force’s 250th Airlift Wing, the Presidential Airlift Wing.

Prestoza will join the ranks of former PSG commanders who were appointed as Isafp chiefs, among them his immediate predecessor, Maj. Gen. Delfin Bangit.

Before he was appointed PSG commander on July 12, 2006, Prestoza was deputy Isafp chief, chairman of the Isafp personnel management board, and chief of the Isafp ethical standard and public accountability office.

Prestoza, a native of Pangasinan, is a member of PMA Class 1978, the same class that adopted Arroyo.

He was a flight commander at the Philippine Air Force Flying School at the San Fernando Air Base in Lipa City in Batangas before he was assigned to the Isafp, where he started out as special projects officer, then later as operations officer, finance officer, assistant director for academics-athletics, and chief of the operations and intelligence division of Isafp.

He had also served in the Presidential Task Force on Intelligence and Counterintelligence, the Presidential Task Force on Antismuggling (Task Force Aduana), and the Antikidnapping Task Force.

The outgoing PSG chief, a decorated officer, had been sent to Tokyo, as the Air Force Representative to the United Nations Command, and to Washington as the air attaché.

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PORO POINT, La Union—President Arroyo has chosen the commander of the Presidential Security Group (PSG), Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, to be the new chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp).