Rosanna Marie B. Villamor: diplomat by blood

Barely a year at her post, Third Secretary and Vice Consul Rosanna Marie B. Villamor is a refreshingly new face at the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo. She bolsters the overworked diplomatic roster with her vibrant youthfulness, good looks, and self-confidence.

Rosanna has a diplomatic pedigree, her father being a former ambassador whose first posting, like hers, was in Tokyo and with the same title.

Rosanna Marie B. Villamor

“As a second-generation diplomat, I have come full circle,” the soft-spoken consul muses as she recalls how she spent her second grade at the Seisen International School in Tokyo. Thenceforth, her father’s job took her to Jeddah, Washington D.C., and Chicago—not always a comfortable experience for a growing, only child, but it opened her eyes early to the value of commitment.

Rosanna graduated with a degree in communication, cum laude, at the University of the Philippines. She had a brief stint with documentary film production, under the wings of Che Che Lazaro. Physically endowed and trained for a career in the glittery media world, she nonetheless returned to the profession she was first enamored with, foreign service. To equip herself, she pursued graduate studies in foreign service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and international relations at the Escuela Diplomatica in Madrid.

As a young woman who loves the exposure to different people and environment that diplomacy affords, does she feel cloistered at the Political Section of the Philippine Embassy? Wouldn’t she rather be in community or media relations, rather than at an ivory tower mulling over political issues?

“Junior officers need to learn different aspects of diplomatic work,” she says with a smile.“And besides, I am not really isolated in my work. My routine includes interacting with my counterparts at other embassies and at the Japanese Foreign Ministry.”

Rosanna is a living proof of the changing gender profile at the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. Although the male-female ratio currently stands at about 65 to 35 in favor of men, the ratio at the junior officers’ level is definitely shifting towards a female majority.

And with a woman, Delia Domingo Albert, at the DFA helm, the balance is tilting towards a working environment friendly to women. Although the secretary believes, as she herself says, that there are no inherent sex-based advantages or disadvantages in this profession, she does observe that women are more particular to details and can withstand longer working hours.

Outside the Embassy, Rosanna deals with people, 98 percent of whom are male, at the ASEAN embassies and at the Gaimusho. How do her counterparts at the other embassies perceive her, as a diplomat representing the mostly female Filipino populace in this country, consisting largely of marginalized entertainers, housewives and domestic helpers?

According to her, they treat and respect her as an individual with her own independent capabilities, thanks to the work of her predecessors. And besides, Japan, like the Philippines has a female Japanese Foreign Minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, and that sets the tone for working relations in the diplomatic community of that country. In any case, it doesn’t bother this charmer a bit to find herself in a male-dominated world. In fact, she says, “There are advantages to be seized upon as a member of the minority.”

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