Rody sends 5 ambassadors to CA

President Duterte has designated three more ambassadors and re-nominated two others.

Malacañang has submitted the ambassadors’ appointment and nomination papers to the Commission on Appointments (CA).

The new appointees are Evan Garcia, permanent representative to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva, Switzerland; Celia Anna Feria, ambassador to Portugal; and Abdulmaid Muin, ambassador to East Timor.

Garcia and Feria are career diplomats, while Muin is a political appointee.

The President also re-nominated Edu- ardo Kapunan Jr. as envoy to Myanmar and Bienvenido Tejano as ambassador to Papua New Ginea.

The two are political appointees. Kapunan is a founding member of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement.

Earlier, the CA confirmed the nominations of several ambassadors, including journalist Teodoro Locsin Jr., the country’s new permanent representative to the UN in New York.

Most of the envoys the President has designated were political appointees.

Sen. Franklin Drilon has appealed to Duterte to appoint more career diplomats.

He said it was very discouraging for these officers to serve for many years and then compete with political appointees for ambassadorial posts.

One political appointee, businessman James Lao, declined a re-appointment from Duterte after suffering embarrassment at the CA as he failed to answer questions related to post he was appointed to lead. He was to be deployed to Brunei.