MANILA, Philippines—Career diplomats at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) are protesting the appointment of Undersecretary Esteban Conejos, Jr. as the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

In an unprecedented move, the Union of Foreign Service Officers (Unifors) wrote a letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Oct. 1 to tell her that her propensity for giving political appointees ambassadorial posts has nearly marginalized the foreign service corps.

Conejos fired off an aide memoire which was circulated in the DFA on Oct. 7 in answer to the Unifors letter.

The riposte defended Conejos’ appointment by pointing out that he had been the government’s “point person” in protecting overseas Filipino workers, the “cornerstone of Philippine foreign policy,” for the last four years as the Foreign Undersecretary for Migrant Worker Affairs.

Malacañang, however, denied that the President had appointed Conejos to the UN post in Geneva.

“The President is not making the appointment. The President holds the record of having most career ambassadors than political appointees. She has every respect for the career diplomats of the DFA. For the record, she did not even appoint her daughter, Luli, when she was among the topnotchers of the FSO exams. Conejos is doing very well in his current post in charge of migrant workers,” Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said in a text message to the Inquirer.

The Inquirer obtained a copy of the Unifors letter to President Arroyo, signed by Unifors president Assistant Secretary Victoria Bataclan, from a highly reliable official who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Bataclan said Conejos’ appointment “not only brings the level of non-career ambassadors to its highest in Philippine history, it places Your Excellency in imminent breach of the statutory limit set by Section 17 of Republic Act No. 7157, otherwise known as the Foreign Service Act of 1991.”

As of Sept. 28 this year, there were 29 non-career ambassadors and 36 career ambassadors in the country’s diplomatic service.

Bataclan informed the President that the Unifors letter contained the “collective plaint of the foreign service corps.”

“We have enough qualified, dedicated and energetic career chiefs of mission. Every political appointment nips the life’s career of six foreign service officers,” Bataclan told the President.

Bataclan has served as consul general in Hong Kong and ambassador to Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Denmark, Norway and Iceland.

In April, the DFA’s rank and file protested the appointment of retired Generals Alexander Yano and Cardozo Luna to ambassadorial posts.