In 1999, Lieutenant Colonel Manuel António Meireles de Carvalho passed on command of the PSP to its new commander, Superintendent General Jose Proença Branco. With the transfer of sovereignty on December 20 of that year, the PSP changed its emblem, replacing the former Portuguese coat of arms with that of the Emblem of Macau. Contemporary media reports recorded that PSP personnel substituted their new cap badges for the former Portuguese