Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary arrives in India on 4-day visit, will co-chair India-Philippines Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation with Jaishankar

New Delhi: Enrique A Manalo, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines has arrived at New Delhi Airport.

He is on a four-day visit to India.

Manalo received an invitation from External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to co-chair the 5th India-Philippines Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC), to be held tomorrow (Wednesday) in New Delhi.

During the meeting, both sides will review the entire gamut of bilateral relations including political, defence, security, maritime cooperation, trade and investment, health, tourism, agriculture, financial technology and will also discuss regional and multilateral issues of mutual interest.

During his visit, Secretary Manalo will also call on Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar.

Secretary Manalo will deliver the 42nd Sapru House Lecture as a joint project under the MoU signed between the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the Philippines and the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) in November 2017.

The visit will provide an opportunity to comprehensively review bilateral relations between India and the Philippines and to explore ways to further deepen and strengthen them.

Manalo was appointed as the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs of Philippines in July 2022.

Manalo earlier served in the foreign service for nearly four years and joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1979.

He is the son of the late Ambassador Armando Manalo and Rosario Manalo, the former ambassador to Belgium and political adviser of the Philippine mission to the United Nations, The Manila Times reported.

Before his appointment as Foreign Affairs secretary, Manalo was the DFA's undersecretary for policy, his second stint in the same position, which he first held from 2007 to 2010.

He has represented the country and has served as the chairman of various international meetings and conferences, the latest of which was the Senior Officials Meeting during the Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting Retreat (AMM Retreat) in Boracay, Malay, Aklan, last February 20.

Manalo worked in the foreign service in various sectors before his first appointment as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary in 2003.

He started serving in the home office as a special assistant to the Office of the Deputy Minister from 1979 to 1981. After completing his first tour of duty at the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, he was named as special assistant to the First Undersecretary of the DFA.

He was also the assistant secretary for European Affairs after his stint as the minister counsellor of the Philippine Mission to the UN in New York from 1998 to 2000.