THE Commission on Appointments yesterday confirmed the appointments of Ma. Theresa Parenno-Lazaro as foreign affairs secretary and Jose Ramon Aliling as human settlements and urban development secretary, along with 118 senior officers of the Armed Forces.
Lazaro replaced Enrique Manalo, who was appointed as the country’s representative to the United Nations, while Aliling took over the post from Jose Acuzar, who will serve as presidential adviser for Pasig River rehabilitation.
They were confirmed on the last day of the regular session of the 19th Congress, which will ad-journ sine die on Friday.
During the deliberations, Lazaro vowed to strengthen the country’s global position ahead of its chairmanship in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year and the bid for a UN Secu-rity Council seat for 2027-2028.
“Our foreign policy must be clearly understood and benefit the very people it serves,” Lazaro said.
She added that she would also focus on improving the DFA’s consular affairs services and ensure that diplomacy remains grounded in the aspirations of the Filipino people.
Lazaro said that balancing multilateralism, mini-lateralism, and Asean Centrality in the Indo-Pacific region is “ingrained” in the bloc’s operations and they are not deemed as conflicting.
“The Philippines is a strong believer of multilateralism. Of course, the bigger and the grander scale. However, on the mini-lateral basis, there are certain countries that kept aligning them-selves,” she said.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada said Lazaro is a “paragon of excellence in the Philippine foreign service” due to her notable contributions in managing tensions in the West Philippine Sea, including fa-cilitating arrangements to ensure the continued resupply of Philippine personnel stationed in Ayungin Shoal.”
Aliling said that his agenda for the department is focused on expanding the national housing program, which will include horizontal developments, housing rentals, and free shelters.
“The department will prioritize the most vulnerable sectors,” Aliling said.
The CA also confirmed the appointments of 59 foreign service officials after their nominations were endorsed by the CA committee on foreign affairs.
The CA body bypassed the confirmation of Presidential Communications Office Secretary Jay Ruiz and Department of Information and Communications Technology Secretary Henry Aguda for lack of time to deliberate on their ad interim appointments.
