OP-ED COLUMN: OPINION ON PAGE ONE By Francisco Tatad – Who’ll make amends for the Kuwait fiasco?

IN a bold and unprecedented move, an undetermined number of career officers of the Department of Foreign Affairs were reported to have asked President Rodrigo Duterte to relieve Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano and his non-career deputies of their posts, following the diplomatic fiasco in Kuwait, arising from the DFA-authorized special operations to rescue allegedly distressed Filipino domestic workers from Kuwaiti private homes last April. They allegedly accused Cayetano and his staff of gross incompetence and blamed them for the fiasco.

Philippine Star first broke the story. It said the officers had written DU30 a letter of complaint, but neither its actual contents nor its signatories have been revealed. DU30 was later quoted as saying Cayetano continues to enjoy his confidence, while Cayetano said he would be happy to go, if DU30 or a majority of the DFA work force were to ask him to.

Fake news only?
Malacañang’s apologists have tried but failed to convince Cayetano that the reported career officers’ move was nothing but “fake news.” It wasn’t fake news at all, as my most highly reliable sources have confirmed. It was the first time anything like this has happened in the Philippine foreign service.

As a young diplomatic reporter-columnist in the 1960s, I watched Ambassador Samson Sabalones and Rafael Gonzales lead career officers in opposing non-meritorious DFA promotions and appointments. As erstwhile chairman of the foreign relations committee of the Commission on Appointments in the 1990s, I watched then Consul General Victoria Bataclan, who recently retired as Philippine ambassador to Brussels, stand her ground as some angry congressmen tried to upbraid her and the Philippine ambassador in Vienna for failing to rearrange their official schedule so that they, rather than a mere protocol officer, could personally welcome them on their unexpected arrival at the Vienna international airport.

Career diplomats have always been vigilant in defending the integrity of the service, and would never let the smallest threat to it pass. But until this latest report, none of them had ever called for an overhaul of the entire DFA leadership because it had, in their view, failed to protect the service. Correct or not, this reported move tended to reflect the depth of resentment among career diplomats over the expulsion of Philippine Ambassador Renato Villa from Kuwait, for carrying out direct orders from the DFA leadership on the rescue operations.

First on record
Villa’s expulsion as persona non grata is the first of any Filipino chief of mission on record. The ambassador arrived in Manila on Wednesday evening to a warm welcome from friends, led by Cayetano and some DFA colleagues. But his expulsion has plunged Philippine-Kuwaiti relations to the basement, from which they need to be rescued and given a fresh start. It has also left Villa without a suitable diplomatic assignment.

Given DU30’s well-known support for his running mate in the 2016 presidential elections, the career officers’ reported call for his resignation will ultimately likely fail. Assuming his critics are not wrong in saying he has become a liability to DU30 at the Foreign Office, the most that could happen to him would probably be a change of jobs. A change of Cabinet posts.

Cut out the excess
But his non-career undersecretaries and overpaid consultants will certainly have to go. This means Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs, Sarah Lou Arreola, who used to be part of Cayetano’s Senate staff, undersecretary for special consular concerns Jose Luis Montales, who used to be city administrator of Taguig, and numerous consultants who are reportedly overpaid an average of P90,000 a month, without any visible output, while organic DFA employees barely get a third of that. They have become a burden to Cayetano.

Arreola has been singled out as the most enthusiastic promoter of the unlawful Kuwait rescue operations, which violated Kuwait’s sovereignty and the norms under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. She was reported to have gone to Kuwait twice to oversee the special operations and make sure the videos were uploaded on Facebook to create a “favorable image” for the future presidential candidate.

Montales on the other hand is disparagingly referred to by some old hands as Cayetano’s “all-purpose alter ego,” who reportedly signs all communications for Cayetano, not just on consular matters but on everything else. Largely because of them, and the clerks from Taguig whom he has appointed to the passports office, Cayetano is now accused of having made the DFA a “dumping ground” for political deadwood and misfits.

Career vs non-career
The position of undersecretary is usually a career position. The only DFA top position that is not necessarily career is that of the Foreign Secretary. But most of our foreign secretaries from the time of Marcos through B. S. Aquino 3rd were men who earned their spurs in the service. These include Carlos P. Romulo, Salvador P. Lopez, Mauro Mendez, Narciso Ramos, Pacifico “Pex” Castro, Rodolfo Severino Jr., Domingo Siazon Jr., and Albert del Rosario. Arturo Tolentino, Salvador P. Laurel, and Blas F. Ople were never part of the service but were all strong supporters of it.

Of Cayetano’s six undersecretaries, only half are career—Usec for administration Linglingay Lacanlale, Usec for policy Enrique Manalo, and Usec for international and economic concerns Manuel Teehankee. Aside from Arreola and Montales, a third non-career undersecretary, Ernesto Abella, has been added without any clear official responsibilities. Abella got his post as Usec for strategic communications and research, whatever that means, after he was unceremoniously replaced as presidential spokesman by Harry Roque.

But he has remained largely invisible because there is no official description of his office, which also has “no budget.” Two sons of his are said to be helping him run his office, and Cayetano sometimes asks him to visit a foreign country just to give him something to do, according to DFA insiders. In fairness to Cayetano, this is an imposition on the DFA by DU30.

Pandora’s box
Because of the Kuwait incident, Cayetano’s leadership at the Foreign Office is now under an extra-large magnifying glass. The incident has opened a Pandora’s box. It has raised other issues entirely unrelated to Kuwait. From all these, greater problems could emanate. Aside from bringing in virtually all of Taguig’s unemployed into the consular workforce, some insiders accuse Cayetano of trying to bring the entire DFA to Taguig. He is said to have discarded a long approved plan to “retrofit” the DFA headquarters on Roxas Boulevard—(this was originally built as the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank)—and constructing instead a new DFA headquarters in Taguig, where he has allegedly already started talking to some property owners.

Of course, other far more serious issues have come up on the international foreign policy front. All these he must now confront with the necessary moral and intellectual courage. He should begin to give DU30 some solid foreign policy advice, rather than simply parrot his off-the-cuff soundbites. And he cannot allow himself to become the second foreign secretary to lose his portfolio because of short-sightedness. He is much too bright and too full of promise for that.

His predecessor, Perfecto Yasay Jr., failed to hurdle the Commission on Appointments confirmation process on a citizenship issue: people discovered that he had been previously naturalized as an American citizen when he practised immigration law in the United States. He did not have the courage to tell DU30 at the outset that he no longer had the necessary citizenship required for the office.

Cayetano does not have this problem. Although his mother is American, which makes him one also under American law, his father, the late former senator Rene Cayetano, was a Filipino, and under our Constitution no one can question his being a Filipino. He has done nothing to provoke the charge that he is an American lackey; to the contrary, he has followed DU30’s lead and toed China’s line on everything, beginning with its refusal to recognize the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague, which upholds the Philippines’ sovereign right over sea areas and maritime formations within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea.

A chance to shine
The career officers’ reported call gives him an opportunity to clean up the administrative mess he has wittingly or unwittingly created at DFA, reach out to Kuwait in order to end the diplomatic crisis caused by the stupid DFA-authorized special operations to rescue allegedly distressed Filipino domestic workers from private Kuwaiti homes, and for which he has already profusely apologized to the Kuwaiti government, and finally show the nation and the world that he is a fully functioning foreign secretary of a constitutional government with a truly “independent” foreign policy.

He has previously indicated a vague intent to file a diplomatic protest against China for landing a military transport plane on Mischief Reef, which lies within our EEZ, recently. But nothing has been heard of it since. Now China has escalated the provocation. It has confirmed deploying cruise missiles on Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross and Subi—-the kind of weapons recently used by the US, Britain, and France on Syria. More could follow. This has raised serious concern from the US, Japan, India, Australia, Britain and France, among others, and should raise a similar, if not a much more serious concern, from strongman DU30.

All this gives Cayetano a welcome opportunity to shine. But he shot himself in the mouth when he said the DU30 government, which does not have an independent verification capability, will first have to verify whether or not what China and everybody else, who have an independent verification capability, have already confirmed, is indeed true.

IN MEMORIAM. It is with profound sorrow that I share with my readers the sad news about the sudden passing in Rockford, Illinois last week of Lawrence (Larry) Jacobs, managing director of the International Organization for the Family and the World Congress of Families, and a dear friend of many years. He was a devoted and tireless family life worker who gave his all for the family, the basic unit of society based on the exclusive union of one man and one woman for life.

I had the opportunity of working with Larry in a number of international family conferences—in Washington, D.C., Salt Lake City, Amsterdam, Madrid, Moscow, Rome, Budapest, etc. Several years ago, Larry came to Manila as my house guest, and had the opportunity to address one of the massive weekend outdoor assemblies of El Shaddai. It left a very deep impression on him, which he loved narrating to friends. Although a non-Catholic, he showed great love and respect for the Pope and Catholics. His work was greatly appreciated by Christian leaders like Prime Minister Viktor Urban of Hungary, and by religious leaders like those of the Russian Orthodox Church and collaborators of the Pope.

Final service for Larry will be held at 6 p.m. on May 10 (Thursday) at Northridge Community Church inside YWCA at Rockford University Campus, 4990 E. State Street, Rockford, IL. If you are near, please come and join the bereaved Jennifer, her family and close friends in saying farewell to this wonderful Christian and family man. Otherwise, kindly offer a prayer for the repose of his soul. Thank you very much.

[email protected] / ON MAY 7, 2018