Marcos Names New Defense Head as Military Quells Unrest Talk

(Bloomberg) -- Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has named former vaccine czar and peace adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. as defense chief, days after he appointed a new military head as the armed forces stamped out talk of unrest among troops.

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Galvez’s appointment followed the resignation of the Department of National Defense’s officer-in-charge Jose Faustino Jr., according to a statement from Marcos’s communications office which did not provide a reason.

The shakeup is the latest change in Marcos’s six-month-old government. He has replaced his executive secretary, while his spokesperson resigned and his social welfare chief didn’t get congressional approval.

“Everything is normal” among troops, military spokesperson Medel Aguilar said Saturday, after a memorandum on an alleged destabilization plot — which the police described as misinformation — circulated over the weekend. On Friday, Marcos named Andres Centino as head of the military, replacing Bartolome Bacarro who was just appointed in August and who had earlier replaced Centino.

“I don’t foresee restiveness among the ranks, that would be stretching it,” said retired Philippine Navy rear admiral Rommel Ong, now a professor of praxis at the Ateneo de Manila University. Still, the military’s ranks “are concerned with the abrupt changes in leadership, but they are expected to recover once a new team has settled in their posts,” Ong said.

The president’s father, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was ousted in 1986 after mass protests and defections among key defense and police officials. Since then, the Southeast Asian nation had witnessed several coup attempts, notably during the presidencies of Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Marcos’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, had appointed retired military officials in his Cabinet, and raised salaries of soldiers and police during his term.

--With assistance from Philip J. Heijmans.

(Adds professor’s comment, context from 3rd paragraph.)

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