Defense appoints Hugo Avilés León as director of the Military Geographic Institute

The Minister of National Defense, Gian Carlo Loffredo Rendón, appointed Joint Staff Colonel Hugo Fernando Avilés León as executive director of the Military Geographic Institute (IGM), the entity responsible for the country’s official cartography and geoinformation. The decision is detailed in Ministerial Agreement 374, published in Official Registry No. 395 on Thursday, October 22, 2026, in its section of Executive Branch agreements. The appointment is effective as of January 16, 2026, in accordance with Land Force General Order No. 238.

The legal framework of the appointment

The agreement is issued based on Article 154, numeral 1, of the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, which grants ministers the leadership of public policies in their area and the power to issue agreements and administrative resolutions; Article 10, literal g), of the Organic Law of National Defense; and Articles 26 and 27 of the Regulations to the National Cartography Law.

Article 26 of said regulation establishes that the director of the IGM must be a general officer graduated in the specialty of Engineering, preferably in Geographic Engineering, appointed by the Ministry of National Defense. In this case, that rank requirement was not applied: report FT-DGTH-UMP-MO-2026-043, dated September 15, 2026, signed by the general director of Human Talent of the Land Force, recommended appointing a colonel from the Engineering branch “in view of the small number of General officers.”

The same report concluded that Avilés León meets the requirements to be appointed director of the IGM, and that Staff Colonel Torres Garzón Augusto Marcelo meets them for the deputy directorship. The process was completed with official letter FT-CGFT-DAP-SMP-2026-7959-O, dated September 16, 2026, sent to the Undersecretary of Support for Sectoral Development - Defense in response to official letter MDN-SUD-2026-0758-OF, dated September 7, 2026.

Two appointments and one retroactive formalization

The agreement contains six articles and is not limited to the head of the institute:

• Article 1: designates Colonel EMC Avilés León Hugo Fernando as executive director of the IGM, with duties starting from January 16, 2026, according to Army General Order No. 238.
• Article 2: designates Staff Colonel Torres Garzón Augusto Marcelo as deputy director of the IGM, with duties starting from July 15, 2024, according to Army General Order No. 135.
• Article 3: formalizes both appointments “for administrative and registration purposes” regarding the indicated periods and recognizes the exercise of duties during those intervals.
• Article 4: orders the delivery of an authentic copy to the general commander of the Army.
• Article 5: obligates the designated authorities to comply with constitutional, legal, and regulatory provisions in all their administrative acts.
• Article 6: establishes that the agreement enters into force upon its signing, without prejudice to its publication in the Ministerial General Order and in the Official Registry.

What the Military Geographic Institute Does

According to Article 1 of the National Cartography Law, cited in the recitals, the IGM is a public law entity with legal personality, administrative autonomy, and its own assets, organically and disciplinarily subordinated to the General Command of the Army, headquartered in Quito. It is responsible for the planning, organization, direction, coordination, execution, approval, and control of activities aimed at producing the National Cartography and the Geographic and Cartographic Data Archive of the Country.

Article 12 of the same law specifies that the director of the institute is responsible for its administrative and disciplinary management. The entity has a long history: Supreme Decree No. 163 created the “Military Geographic Service,” published in Official Registry No. 620 on April 11, 1928, and Executive Decree No. 940, published in Official Registry Supplement No. 581 on November 22, 2011, attached it to the Ministry of National Defense.

The outgoing director was Colonel EMC Acosta Álvarez Pablo Aníbal, appointed via a transfer resolution published in Army General Order No. 115 on June 18, 2021. The ministry’s General Coordination of Legal Counsel had already warned in memorandum MDN-JUR-2021-1145-ME, dated October 5, 2021, that when a general officer is not available, a justification report regarding the impossibility of appointing an officer of that rank must be attached.

The publication of this agreement closes an administrative process that extended for more than a month between human talent reports, official letters from the Land Force, and the ministerial signature. For users of official cartography—local governments, cadastre, territorial planning, public works, and defense—the change matters because the IGM is the entity that validates and disseminates the State’s geoinformation, and its executive directorate defines priorities for cartographic production and the administration of the national geographic data archive.

Source: Official Registry, No. 395, Thursday, October 22, 2026, Agreements section – Executive Branch, p. 2 (official reference: Ministerial Agreement 374).