Act­ing Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says he is hum­bled by his ap­point­ment as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and has pledged to work with all stake­hold­ers to make Trinidad and To­ba­go safer.

Gue­var­ro, who is cur­rent­ly as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch, was nom­i­nat­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion ear­li­er this week. On Fri­day, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved his nom­i­na­tion.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the con­fir­ma­tion, Gue­var­ro thanked God and the Par­lia­ment for their con­fi­dence in his lead­er­ship and ac­knowl­edged the grav­i­ty of the role.

"I am mind­ful of the se­ri­ous is­sues cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing pub­lic con­cern, in­clud­ing school vi­o­lence, ris­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, the im­per­a­tive to strength­en pub­lic trust in polic­ing, gang in­flu­ence in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties, firearm-re­lat­ed crime and road safe­ty chal­lenges," he said.

Gue­var­ro al­so paid trib­ute to the oth­er can­di­dates for the po­si­tion, say­ing their ded­i­ca­tion sets an ex­am­ple for younger of­fi­cers with am­bi­tions to one day lead the ser­vice.

His ap­point­ment re­ceived bi­par­ti­san sup­port. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Par­lia­ment that her gov­ern­ment ful­ly en­dorsed the rec­om­men­da­tion, hav­ing re­viewed Gue­var­ro’s ré­sumé. She said the ad­min­is­tra­tion would not in­ter­fere with the mer­it list or the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s process.

Op­po­si­tion MP and for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so en­dorsed Gue­var­ro, de­scrib­ing his in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing ex­pe­ri­ence as a valu­able as­set. He re­called work­ing with Gue­var­ro on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions and praised his pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

Port-of-Spain South MP and for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Kei­th Scot­land, SC, al­so gave his back­ing, point­ing to Gue­var­ro’s in­ter­ro­ga­tion skills and law en­force­ment ex­per­tise as strengths that would re­in­force the po­lice ser­vice.