Upon swearing in as the new president of the Republic, Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. administered the oath to new Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo, a career diplomat with DFA for over 4 decades and son of two respected career diplomats-- the late Armando Manalo and Rosario Manalo, now a rapporteur at the UN committee to stop discrimination against women.
Finally, a career diplomat—and one born to diplomat parents—will be heading the Department of Foreign Affairs, an important position as the DFA head advises and assists the President in planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, integrating and evaluating efforts in foreign relations in pursuit of its Constitutional mandate.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. appointed today former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Enrique Manalo—whose parents the late Armando, was ambassador to Belgium and political adviser of the Philippine Mission to the UN. He was also a journalist and his mother, Rosario, was the first female career diplomat of the DFA who also served as ambassador to Belgium, among other posts like Sweden and France. She was recently elected rapporteur of a UN committee to stop discrimination against women.
Manalo took his oath before the newly- sworn president in Malacanang, replacing former Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. Manalo will be winding up affairs in his post.
Being top diplomat is nothing new to Manalo, having served briefly as acting secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs when the ad-interim appointment of the late Perfecto Yasay Jr. was rejected by the Commission on Appointments in 2017.
In 2020, he was appointed by former president Rodrigo Duterte as Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the United Nations.
Manalo also previously served as undersecretary for policy of the DFA under Duterte and briefly under late president Benigno Aquino III.
Manalo, the Philippines’ former ambassador to the United Nations in New York, is the first career diplomat to serve as full-time foreign secretary in nearly two decades. While he served as acting DFA chief for two months in 2017 (he called himself a “transition man” back then), the last career diplomat to serve as DFA chief in a full-time capacity was Delia Albert from 2003 to 2004.
This is significant because career diplomats, who underwent grueling exams and mastered diplomacy – a complex field that requires knowledge of history, politics, and international relations – have always wanted one of their own to lead the foreign service.
The position of foreign secretary, however, has often been given to political appointees – a mixed bag, ranging from the likes of businessman Albert del Rosario, who steered the Philippines’ case against China under Benigno Aquino III, to the likes of Alan Peter Cayetano, a politician whose contradicting statements on diplomacy puzzled Filipinos and foreigners alike, Rappler stated.
Credentials
Manalo, a University of the Philippines economics graduate who joined the DFA in 1979, has a compact four-page list of credentials. This includes at least 12 long assignments abroad, and nearly two dozen international meetings, most of which he chaired.
Manalo served as the DFA’s undersecretary for policy from August 2007 to February 2010, under then-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
He got the same position from April 2016 to March 2017, which covered the administrations of then-presidents Benigno Aquino III and Rodrigo Duterte.Manalo is also the son of two ambassadors.
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