PRESIDENT Marcos Jr. has reappointed diplomat Manuel Antonio Teehankee as the country’s representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland, presidential briefer Daphne Oseña-Paez said yesterday.
Teehanke was first appointed to the post in July last year but the Commission on Appointments (CA) committee on foreign affairs deferred deliberations on his appointment pending the submission of a copy of the “Understanding on Agreed Procedures that the Philippines and Thailand” had signed to settle the trade disputes between the two countries.
Teehankee held the same position under the administrations of former presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Rodrigo Duterte.
He chaired the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB), a WTO body that oversees the implementation of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism, in 2019 and the WTO’s Committee on Trade and Environment from 2007 to 2011.
Teehankee, a lawyer, was a former undersecretary of the Department of Justice and a former government corporate counsel for the Philippine government.
Oseña-Paez, in a briefing, also announced the appointment of Leonila Baluyut as Assistant Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and confirmed the appointments of Marlo Guloy and Benjamin Madrigal Jr. as Deputy Directors-General of the National Security Council (NSC).
Baluyut was a former DTI Regional Director for Region III (Central Luzon) while Guloy served as the Philippine’s Defense and Armed Forces Attaché in the Philippine Embassy in Washington. Madrigal served as the Armed Forces chief of staff from December 2018 to September 2019 and was later appointed as administrator of the Philippine Coconut Authority.
Oseña-Paez said other appointees include Andrew Rodolfo Orais and Jose Elumba as Directors IV and III, respectively, at the Departments of Agriculture (DA); Frederick Amores as Director IV and Sittie Rahma Alawi, Reynaldo Sy, and Jocelyn Tendenilla as Director III at the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT); and Kenneth Chua and Milagros Ogalinda as members of the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council under the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
