DFA chief Enrique Manalo to be named PH permanent representative to UN

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Malacañang says Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo will be replaced by fellow career diplomat Ma. Theresa Lazaro

MANILA, Philippines – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will appoint Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo as the Philippines’ permanent representative to the United Nations by end-July, Malacañang announced on Friday, May 23.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said in a news briefing that Manalo will be replaced by Foreign Undersecretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro, whom he described as “also a capable diplomat.”

Bersamin explained that the President’s decision was prompted by the “desire to retire” of Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN Antonio Lagdameo by July 31 of this year.

He also said that Manalo’s next assignment is aligned with the Philippines’ bid for a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, a move that was launched during Manalo’s watch.

Manalo, the first career diplomat to head the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in nearly two decades, was appointed to the post on July 1, 2022, or a day after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took his oath as 17th President of the Republic. 

He has led the DFA under a Marcos administration that has been more assertive in claiming its rights and staking its claims in the West Philippine Sea. In the face of a China that claims most of the South China Sea, this has meant tense ties with the superpower north of the Philippines. 

Manalo also oversaw the “hyperdrive” in bilateral ties between treaty-allies the Philippines and the United States in the three years that Marcos and former US president Joe Biden’s terms overlapped. 

The veteran diplomat has been travellng all over the world as the Marcos administration seeks to re-establish old ties and make new or emerging ones. While the shift from internal to external and territorial defense is beyond the purview of the DFA, Manalo and the department are essential in the negotiations of these agreements and partnerships. 

DFA chief is a post Manalo has held before, albeit temporarily, back in 2017. Before that, he was DFA’s undersecretary for policy from August 2007 to February 2010, under then-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and again from April 2016 to March 2017, under the administrations of the late former president Benigno Aquino III and Duterte. – Rappler.com