'Dad, what do you do...?
By José Abeto Zaide
Putting down his Dier Telegraf, the ambassador explained to his son a diplomat’s work and his duties—his tendering national day receptions, why the mother must be the gracious hostess at dinners, his occasional calls on the foreign office, his urgent telexes, or the lengthier ones via the pony express called the diplomatic pouch. It was a brave, erudite effort for an accomplished ambassador and one of our last U.S. State Department-trained diplomats in our young foreign service. After patiently listening, the boy asked: “Yes, Dad—but are you a doctor? Are you an engineer? Are you a teacher? You must do something useful? These fourth graders at the International British School, they know everything! They compare notes, including what their fathers do for a living. And if we cannot explain it to our sons and daughters at fourth grade, we should probably ask ourselves if what we do is really worth doing!
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I had a different experience in my time. On my first foreign posting as Vice Consul in Hamburg, I had admonished the sinner, fed the hungry, visited the imprisoned. I had done practically all the spiritual and corporeal acts of mercy except to clothe the naked. You see, we occasionally had to take guests to the Reeperbahn. (But that’s another story). There were times when I had to rise from the family dinner table to rush to the police precinct because Filipino sailors had gotten into bar brawls. There were mornings when our kids would wake up and find stranded strangers sleeping on the couch. One time, Consul Florencio Dumapias, father of Ambassador Rudy Dumapias,and I were invited by Indonesian Consul General Sarni and Consul Tantomo. We had not met our Indonesian colleagues, so we were pleased to make their acquaintance at the priciest Japanese restaurant Daitokai. After the main course and banter, toward dessert, we would discover the price of the hospitality. Consul General Sarni began affably, “I wonder if you know, Mr. Consul, that your seamen nearly killed your national hero…” “What do you mean, Mr. Consul General?” Dumapias and I almost on cue chorused. “Filipino seamen,” Consul General Sarni would deliver the coup de grace, “stabbed an Indonesian student named José Rizal Panduwinata…” Rizal, as we all know, is honored not only by Filipinos but by the entire Malay race. Fortunately, the Indonesian José Rizal would recover. In memory of the original José Rizal and to keep the peace in Hamburg, we agreed to advise our respective communities to stay away from the Reeperbahn until things cooled down. Our bilateral cooperation was excellent; the two Consulates General even agreed to help each other whenever we “must make emergency nocturnal visits” with VIP guests to the Reeperbahn. Philippine foreign service is unique from all others. Besides the traditional and classical diplomatic work, it is in our culture to care for our nationals. (We even have an acronym for it, “ATN,” for assistance-to-nationals). I had cut my teeth in consular work and ATN cases long before the Flor Contemplacion tragedy. And my crew, and all foreign service officers who came after us, took ATN all in a day’s work. It is curious to be told now by a vigilant press and by politicians to do what we have always been doing.
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But that’s not the end of the story. To return to our bright young fourth-grader, 13 years after he askedhis ambassador father the question, he would also take the foreign service exams—and to top it with a score that has not been equaled in the annals of our foreign service exams. I congratulated him as a brand-new foreign service officer then, and asked if he, too, likes to do something that was “not useful!” I should remind him of my letter again because in the course of time, this promising diplomat has been on fast-track, was at the right elbow of two foreign secretaries, and he is now a breath away from becoming an Ambassador himself.
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an undated article contributed by Annie Cano from Googles
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