CA approves Duterte's appointment of Manalo as Philippine envoy to UN

The Commission on Appointments (CA) on Wednesday has approved the Presidential appointment of longtime diplomat Enrique Manalo as Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, United States.

Manalo, as a result, will receive salary and emoluments as Chief of Mission, Class 1.

The approval of Manalo comes at a time when President Rodrigo Duterte has been issuing controversial statements pertaining to the UN ever since he took office in 2016.

In July 2019, the President said he was willing to be jailed as a result of alleged extrajudicial killings attributed to his administration as long as he has a comfortable cell and conjugal visits in response to a United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution initiating a comprehensive review of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs due to unabated drug-related deaths.

In August 2016, the President also said that the Philippines should leave the UN because the latter is an inutile due to UN’s opposition on the bloody war on drugs.

Based on government records, over 6,700 drug suspects have been killed under the police’s anti-drug operations. The said number, however, does not include those drug war deaths perpetrated by unidentified gunmen. — MDM, GMA News