Ex-Navy officer Villanueva named DFA spokesperson on maritime affairs

A former naval and Coast Guard officer turned diplomat is the Department of Foreign Affairs' new spokesperson on maritime issues, in a move that will ensure a unified government response on matters related to the West Philippine Sea and South China Sea.

DFA deputy Assistant Secretary Rogelio Villanueva, a career diplomat, was officially named as the department's spokesperson on maritime affairs. 

His appointment came amid the ongoing word war between China’s diplomats and Filipino lawmakers and government officials.

Villanueva has the rank of career minister and has been with the Foreign Service for nearly 15 years.

Villanueva graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1994 and has served in the Philippine Navy and Philippine Coast Guard before joining  the Foreign Service in 2008. He holds a Master's Degree in Maritime Administration from World Maritime University.

His previous foreign assignments were to the Philippine Embassy in Lisbon, where he served as Third Secretary and Vice Consul from 2011 to 2014 and the Philippine Consulate General in Vancouver as Consul from 2014 to 2017. 

Prior to his recall to the Home Office in January 2025, he was assigned in the Philippine Consulate General in Frankfurt where he served as Consul then Deputy Consul General, from 2019 to 2025.

The Philippines, through the DFA, said last month it is alarmed over heated exchanges between Filipino officials and some senators and Chinese diplomats in Manila over their long-standing territorial rifts in the South China Sea.

In January, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Philippine Ambassador Jaime FlorCruz to protest statements by Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea Commodore Jay Tarriela, who has openly criticized China's increasingly aggressive actions in waters.

The DFA said it “made firm representations to the Chinese ambassador and the Chinese Embassy conveying serious concerns with the escalation of public exchanges.”

While the DFA expressed support to Philippine officials, including some lawmakers, who have issued remarks in defense of the country’s sovereignty in the waters, it warned that the word war could “unnecessarily derail the diplomatic space needed to manage the tensions in the maritime domain."

In a forum in Makati City on Monday, Philippine Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez said diplomacy and restraint must prevail despite the Philippines' territorial rifts with China.

Romualdez said he met new Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan, China's deputy envoy in the US, in Washington before he assumed as Beijing's top diplomatic post in Manila last year.

He said both of them discussed how to effectively manage tensions by maintaining dialogue while the Philippines defends its rights in the West Philippine Sea.

Parts of the South China Sea that fall within Philippine territory have been renamed by Manila as West Philippine Sea to reinforce the country’s claim.

The West Philippine Sea refers to the maritime areas on the western side of the Philippine archipelago including Luzon Sea and the waters around, within and adjacent to the Kalayaan Island Group and Bajo de Masinloc.

China insists ownership of almost 90 percent of the South China Sea, including areas that overlap with the Philippines’ and other Asian nations’ territorial waters.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, China and Taiwan all have overlapping claims over the waters – a major trade route teeming with rich marine life and said to be harboring vast oil and mineral deposits. 

The Philippines challenged the validity of China's sprawling territorial claims in the South China Sea and sought to clarify the territorial entitlements of certain Chinese-occupied features under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, or UNCLOS. Manila won the case against China, which refused to recognize the ruling. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News