De Lima Gives Marching Orders To New NBI OIC

MANILA, Philippines - Department of Justice (DOJ) Regional Prosecutor Nonnatus Caesar Rojas, who will sit as officer-in-charge(OIC) of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) starting January 30, personally met Secretary Leila De Lima for the first time on Thursday since his designation.

Rojas, Regional Prosecutor for Region 1, along with regional prosecutors of the DOJ, met the justice chief at the DOJ main office in Manila, for their annual conference.

De Lima told ABS-CBN News what her instructions are for the new temporary head of the country's lead investigating agency.

"I gave him the directive already and instructions, and among the instructions that I told him is to review the policies with respect to the screening [and] the hiring of the confidential agents (CA) and also to review these security volunteers (SV). I really didn’t know what was the basis for the hiring or the utilization of the so-called SVs or security volunteers," she said.

SVs were implicated in the alleged kidnapping and extortion of undocumented Japanese national Noriyo Ohara in October last year that led to the termination of the appointment of NBI Director Magtanggol Gatdula.

Gatdula was implicated in the alleged crime.

De Lima also told ABS-CBN News she had instructed Rojas to review the performance of the bureau's current deputy directors and regional directors as she mulls a major reshuffle or revamp.

"As a prelude to major reshuffle or revamp [at] the deputy directorial level, I told him also to review the performance, the track record, of those at the top -- the deputy directorial level and also the regional directors level," she said.