Phl embassy in Washington gets 2nd ambassador

WASHINGTON – Consul General Domingo Nolasco has been promoted to chief of mission class II.

He received his ad interim appointment from President Aquino on Tuesday and now awaits from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) his official designation as deputy chief of mission of the Philippine embassy in Washington, vice newly arrived Ambassador Jose Cuisia.   

Nolasco’s appointment was effective April 15. He still has to get the confirmation of the Commission on Appointments. Nolasco joined the DFA in 1990 and was posted to Washington in 2006.

Meanwhile, the new Japanese ambassador Toshinao Urabe arrived Wednesday night from Tokyo, with his wife Etsuko.

He was welcomed at the airport by Japanese chargé d’affaires and Consul General Motoshiko Kato and deputy chief of Protocol Edgar Tomas Auixilian.

Urabe, 61, in a press statement, said he would pursue more vigorously Japan’s commitment to assist the Philippines in its economic and social development goals.

He also thanked Filipinos for their sympathies and support for his country following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Urabe said the three-year-old Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) has also enhanced trade and investment relations between the two countries.

“My mission is to develop this strategic partnership,” Urabe pointed out.

“Our political dialogue is also intensifying and Japan is trying hard to facilitate the peace process in Mindanao,” he said.

Urabe replaced Makoto Katsura who served as ambassador to Manila for three years.

He recalled that he had studied at the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School in Manila in 1954. With just a decade after World War II, anti-Japanese sentiment was still strong, he said.

“But the Filipinos received me warmly. My parents were forever grateful,” Urabe said.

He said his father was Japan’s ambassador to the Philippines from 1969 to 1974.

“I love the Philippines...I cannot help myself sensing destiny being here,” he said.

On the Philippines’ decision to curb imports of products from certain areas in Japan where radiation levels are high, he said, “We are trying to have the necessary control on the products which we think, according to scientific data, are contaminated. So once it is exported, I think it’s quite safe.”

Grateful Nuncio

Outgoing Papal Nuncio Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, for his part, thanked the Filipinos for their support and hospitality during his 42 months of stay in the Philippines.

“I am humbled by your great kindness…I remember the warm welcome extended to me on my arrival three and a half years ago and the extraordinary hospitality offered to me during my first weeks in your country,”Adams said in a farewell Mass at the Manila Cathedral Thursday. He is expected to move to Greece anytime soon.

He said he was able to visit 66 of the 86 dioceses in the Philippines, and that everywhere he went “I experience the same warmth, same friendliness.”

“That tradition has continued even in these last days. I take with me fond memories of my being…I know that the affection that you have shown the Nuncio is an expression of your Catholic faith and of your love for his holiness Pope Benedict XVI,” he said.

“Even though thousands of miles will separate us, I will be remembering all of you in my prayers and ask you to say an occasional prayer for me, for my new work for the Holy Father in Greece…Until we meet again,” he said. – With Rudy Santos, Evelyn Macairan