Carlos quits, Año is NSA

Professor Clarita Carlos has decided to continue her pursuit of scholastic endeavors as she joins the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department of the House of Representatives.

Former Interior Secretary Eduardo Año is the new National Security Adviser to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. after Clarita Carlos resigned, Malacañang announced on Saturday.

Presidential Communications Office Secretary Cheloy Garafil said Año, a 61-year-old retired military general, took his oath before the President in Malacañang earlier in the day.

Carlos held the post in the first seven months of the Marcos administration.

“Professor Clarita Carlos has decided to continue her pursuit of scholastic endeavors as she joins the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department of the House of Representatives,” Garafil said.

Carlos, in a statement on the same day, confirmed that she had decided to quit her job after realizing that it was “no longer politic” to continue serving as NSA.

“I have realized that it is no longer politic to continue as NSA to the President and so I have decided to migrate to another agency where my expertise on foreign, defense, and security policy will be of use and I shall continue to help build a better Philippines,” she said.

Moves to Congress

The CPBRD provides the lower chamber of Congress with technical services in the formulation of national economic, fiscal, and social policies.

Carlos was the first female civilian president of the National Defense College of the Philippines, serving from 1998 to 2001.

She also served as executive director of the policy research think tank StratSearch Foundation Inc.

Her resignation came amid the courtesy resignations of several officials in the Department of National Defense following the departure of former officer-in-charge Jose Faustino Jr.

The DND, however, downplayed the resignations, saying this was “customary” after the new Defense Secretary — Carlito Galvez Jr. — was installed.

The major shake-up in the military began after the President reappointed Gen. Andres Centino as Armed Forces chief of staff, a post that Centino first held from November 2021 to August 2022.

Meanwhile, Año is back in the government after serving as Interior Secretary in the Duterte administration from November 2018 to June 2022.

A veteran intelligence officer, he also served as chief of staff of the AFP from December 2016 to October 2017.

He was also the vice chairperson of the national task force against Covid-19 of the former administration.

Año is a member of Philippine Military Academy Class of 1983.