Barican raps Siazon over ambassadorial post yarn

Conduct unbecoming a professional diplomat.

This was the tart response of outgoing Presidential Spokesman Fernando Barican to the comment of Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is not an employment agency.

Barican is reportedly being eyed for the post of ambassador to either Indonesia or Argentina.

Siazon was quoted as saying the DFA was not an employment agency, and that an ambassadorial assignment for either Barican or Tourism Secretary Gemma Cruz-Araneta -- also reportedly on the way out -- would be a "demotion."

"I never believed I would see in print comments like these from a Cabinet colleague, much less a diplomat," Barican said in his handwritten note to Siazon, who is in Cartagena, Colombia on official mission.

A member of Barican's staff said that the spokesman was "hopping mad" and "cursing" upon reading the foreign secretary's comments in the newspapers.

Barican has long wanted out of the Cabinet, and his post is expected to be merged with that of incoming press secretary Ricardo Puno.

Puno will take over the post of Rodolfo Reyes, who has been appointed to the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taipei, a designation which Siazon also reportedly frowned on.

Siazon was said to have preferred the MECO to be headed by a career foreign service official instead of a political appointee.

"I've just written a personal and private note, just between the two of us, to Secretary Siazon, it's a friendly little note and the contents of which I cannot publicly disclose," Barican said.

But The STAR got hold of a copy of the letter written on a private stationery.

"As you are well aware, I have not lobbied for any job, in or out of the DFA. I have only asked to be allowed to leave my current office and to move on, to a private sector if that is the President's wish," he wrote.

"Employment agency? In your very presence, only this week, I respectfully declined the President's kind offer of postings to Buenos Aires or Jakarta as 'I do not wish to give Jun Siazon any problems.' My reward for circumspection and propriety has been two days of what in my view are entirely inappropriate remarks from the Secretary of Foreign Affairs," he continued.

Meanwhile, Barican defended the President from the latest criticisms that he has been appointing juicy diplomatic posts to his long-time allies.

Mr. Estrada had reportedly appointed the girlfriend of former Caloocan Mayor Macario Asistio, former starlet Dhjoanna Garcia, as consul-general in Los Angeles. Asistio is the younger brother of Caloocan Rep. Luis Asistio, purported mainstay of the "midnight Cabinet."

Barican however said the President received recommendations from all sectors of society, not just from politicians. "It is not uncommon for political figures to recommend people they know or people who supported them for public office," he said.

In another development, Puno was formally introduced yesterday by his new boss as the "new Press Secretary" during awarding rites for the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines.