DFA career service dismantled with DFA concurrence

This article is a follow up to the author’s preceding article stating that Our Foreign Service is in a Mess. The Supreme Court in the case Cruz vs. Carpio Morales et al. (GR 203688), dismantled the DFA Career Service. Surprisingly, the DFA endorsed this decision of the Supreme Court when Usec Linglingay Lacanlale spoke before the Commission on Appointments on September 17, 2014, supporting the Court’s decision.

For a brief background, under RA 708, The Foreign Service Act of the Philippines (1952) the entry into the career service by examination was a farce. Anybody with political connections can get appointed Foreign Service Officer. This situation was solved when the Closed Career Service was established under PD 807, The Philippine Civil Service Decree ( 1975), followed by the enactment of RA 7157, The Foreign Service Act of 1991. RA 708, The Foreign Service Act of 1952, was patterned after the US Foreign Service Act of 1924, better known as the Rogers Act. The US Foreign Service is a closed career service.

So the reader will understand the terms, the career service under PD 807, is now divided into the Open Career Service and the Closed Career Service. The Closed Career Service is governed “ x x x by its own merit rules,” ( Sec. 5, par. 2, PD 807). This means that the DFA has its own salary system and its own rules on recruitment, examination, promotion, retirement, etc. distinct from the rest of the civil service. These merit rules are established under RA 7157. The merit rules of the Open Career Service is governed by PD 807 and this decree applies to the overwhelming majority of civil servants. In the executive branch, only the DFA and the military are in the closed career service.

To continue, when we drafted RA 7157, it was decided that all the merit rules of the DFA will be uniquely its own, with one exception and that is, with respect to employee discipline. Section 54, RA 7157 states that “in administrative cases x x x the rules, regulations and guidelines promulgated by the Civil Service Commission shall be strictly observed.”

In the Cruz v. Carpio Morales Case (GR 203688), the Supreme Court allowed the ruling in Cuevas v. Bacal (GR 347 SCRA 354)j, a case in the CESO, to be applied to the DFA. This case is a salary dispute and not a disciplinary case and , therefore, not applicable to the DFA. This contention was submitted to both the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court but was ignored by both bodies.

A Closed Career Service as noted, is established by a law passed by Congress. Any changes thereto must be done by an act of Congress. Thus, in the United States, all the amendments to the 1924 Rogers Act were carried out through Acts passed by the US Congress, namely: The Foreign Service Act of 1946, the 1960 Amendments to the US Foreign Service Act and the US Foreign Service Act of 1980. In the case at hand, the SC amended RA 7157 by exercising legislative powers. This will have a devastating effect on the DFA career service.

Since RA 7157 went into effect in 1991, not a single FSO had been appointed who has not passed the difficult FSO exam. With the SC ruling, any court in the country can now amend RA 7157 and change the provisions of the DFA Closed Career System. A person with an ordinary civil service eligibility could petition that his eligibility be declared appropriate for appointment as FSO. He could easily win his case by forum shopping for a friendly judge. The worst part is a CESO eligible with the right connections, will have a claim to ask for assignment abroad to the Foreign Service reasoning out that on the basis of the SC ruling, the eligibility as CESO is also valid for assignment in the Foreign Service.

 The choice of a CESO ruling and applying the same to the DFA, is the worst possible scenario for the DFA career service. Attempts have been made in the past to infiltrate CESO eligibles into the DFA. One such attempt was the so-called Ople Bill in 2001. Senator Ople was then chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The Bill was practically a replica of RA 7157, save for the provision allowing the CESO eligibles to get assigned in the Foreign Service.

Fortunately, the author was a member of the Technical Working Group ( TWG) in the House of Representatives at that time. On his representations, the Ople Bill was shelved in the House and lapsed with the outgoing Congress.

Usec Lacanlale committed the newcomer’s mistake in handling administration, by not taking into account everyone’s interest. Her approach favored the senior officers and chiefs of mission. But this left the junior officers out in the cold. The advancement in the service of the junior officers will be adversely affected if the DFA career structure is dismantled pursuant to the SC decision. Many of them will retire as career ministers or FSO Is, a common occurrence for career officers under RA 708. One cannot blame the junior officers if they decide to strike out on their own to protect their interests.

This division in the DFA career service is unfortunate. The DFA senior officers had all benefitted from RA 7157. Had this Act not been put into effect, most of them will not be at the same level now. Their careers would have been stunted by the influx of too many outsiders. One would hope that the DFA senior officers and Usec Lacanlale take the long view that it is their solemn obligation to pass on to the next generation of FSOs, an intact career service. Our generation did the more difficult task of constructing the current career service. Maintaining the same will be a far easier task now for the DFA senior officers.

When this writer was invited in 1988 by the vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Jaime C. Lopez to help draft House Bill 24819, which became RA 7157, he was fully supported by the senior officers in the DFA. The senior officers lobbied their friends in Congress to enact the bill into law. We have nothing more to gain by passing RA 7157, since we are all Chiefs of Mission I already at that time. But we took this step with the long term interest of the service in mind.

The all important question is also why did the Supreme Court took the step of dismantling the DFA career system? There was no complaint from the DFA staff or the general public about any defect in RA 7157. Should the time come when it becomes necessary to restructure the DFA career service, such action should be done by Congress and not by the SC. Government re-organization is a question of public policy and not a legal issue. The SC has been criticized of late for over reaching by no less than President Benigno Aquino. The current mess in the DFA is a product of judicial over reach by the Supreme Court with unfortunate results. A functioning career service was replaced by a dysfunctional one.— Ambassador (ret.) Hermenegildo C. Cruz