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MANILA (UPDATED) - Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Officer-in-Charge Eliseo Rio said Monday that Malacañang has assured him that he can lead the agency until January 2019.

Rio said he was ready to step down from the post, but asked President Rodrigo Duterte to be allowed to finish the selection process for the third major telecommunications player.

"I was, more or less, given time to finish this," Rio said referring to third telco bidding during an interview with ABS-CBN News.

Rio said Duterte wanted to appoint Sen. Gregorio Honasan to head the DICT as early as September last year to replace Rodolfo Salalima who had just resigned. But Malacañang also needed Honasan to stay in the Senate, in case the impeachment case filed against then Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno went to trial.

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"I serve at the pleasure of the President and I support the decision of the President," Rio said.

The DICT chief said after the selection of the third telco, he is now reviewing the common tower policy that is meant to facilitate the new player's entry into the market.

Rio is a licensed Electronics and Communications Engineer who finished 4th in the ECE Board Exams in 1971. After retiring as Brigadier General of the Philippine Army, he was appointed to the National Telecommunications Commission in 2001.

- Report from Warren De Guzman, ABS-CBN News