‘Jonvic’ gets CA nod as DILG chief

The Commission on Appointments (CA) approved on Wednesday the ad interim appointment of Juanito Victor “Jonvic” Remulla as secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

During the plenary deliberation on his appointment, Remulla received the full support of the members of the powerful commission, as nobody from either the Senate or the House of Representatives contingents opposed his confirmation.

The powerful body approved his confirmation after CA Majority Floor Leader Luis Raymund  “LRay” Villafuerte Jr. made the motion to recommend him as the DILG chief.

Before his confirmation, Remulla addressed several concerns of the CA members, particularly about his plan to streamline the Philippine National Police organizational structure.

“I came from totally new grounds, and I wanted to see how the reactions would be. Upon study, we do not have 135 men, we have 153 generals, and a lot of them are redundant,” he said when asked about the matter by Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros.

“And I think we’ve had consultations, we’ve been talking to them, and I think we can streamline this down to maybe less than 100 currently,” he added.

Barely two weeks after he was appointed DILG chief on 8 October by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Remulla said he had recommended to the President that the number of generals in the PNP be reduced from the current 133 to 25 due to “redundancy.”

He said there have been “discrepancies” in the delineation of the functions of PNP generals.

“There’s no clear delineation on when they get promoted immediately to what command they will be put under. I think Senator Ronald 'Bato' dela Rosa can confirm that a lot of them are promoted and then they find a command for them,” he said.

“What we plan to do is with the 225,000 police force, a general should have a command directly under him at all times,” he added.

He, likewise, said he is planning to set clear rules for the promotion in the PNP which he said would be “based on merit and it is based on need and it is based on function.”

Former Senate President Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri, the chair of the CA’s Committee on Interior and Local Government, sponsored the confirmation of Remulla before the plenary.

Remulla, a brother of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, replaced former DILG chief Benjamin Abalos Jr., who resigned to run for senator in the upcoming 2025 elections.

Before his stint in the agency, he was a three-term vice governor of Cavite, serving from 1998 to 2007, before finally becoming governor from 2010 to 2016 and then again from 2019 to October of this year.