Unlikely diplomat was RP’s best envoy to US

Albert del Rosario’s five years as Philippine ambassador to the US was a nonstop race against time. Confirmed by Congress in Oct. 2001, he flew to his new post the next day after a rush briefing at the foreign office. Gloria Arroyo was to visit Washington in six weeks, so del Rosario needed to arrange all her meetings, chiefly with George W. Bush. Yet the embassy still had to fix his own presentation of credentials to the White House, for only then may he officially operate. Untrained in diplomacy but leaning on old pals at the Capitol, the tyro dashed from one negotiation to another, in between absorbing a carton of diverse papers on RP-US ties. Three days to the tête-à-tête of the two leaders on Nov. 25, del Rosario was yet bargaining to fulfill Arroyo’s wish for better economic deals from Bush. Manila must get superior packages than those just handed to Indonesia or Pakistan. Del Rosario swung it, but it was only the first of a train of harried lobbying and firefighting in the capital of America and of the world.

When the Manila delegation left that late fall of 2001, the exhausted envoy found no time to rest. More meetings had to be set to apply the pacts between the ally states. While at it, del Rosario, who had never before been on camera, fielded 50 or so TV interviews in the following two months. RP needed to get its message across, ten years after relations cooled with the departure of US bases. Arroyo’s visit was for del Rosario like being thrown into the deep end of the pool. Worse jobs lay ahead for the unlikely head of RP’s team in America. A quiet Manila tycoon in insurance, real estate and telecoms, he hardly could assess what he got himself into when swayed by close friend, then-executive secretary Alberto Romulo, to join the service. Diplomacy could be learned on the job, then-vice president and foreign affairs chief Teofisto Guingona assured. What del Rosario lacked in time and training, he made up for with business traits of resourcefulness and risk-taking.

Crisis hit months after Arroyo’s visit. The White House had acceded to Andean leaders’ plea for duty-free imports of canned tuna in exchange for fighting drugs. Congress’ implementing bill would hurt RP’s own tuna exports, for which the US was the biggest market. At least 150,000 workers in Mindanao canneries and on ships would lose jobs from a US preference for their competitors. The trust-building work of US-AID against terrorism in the southern island would falter.

Filipino tuna tycoons put up a P2-million lobby fund, but del Rosario didn’t need it. A more potent weapon was the Filipino-American populace, then beginning to flex muscle. With their unprecedented help, the embassy staff visited over 120 offices on Capitol Hill in three months to present RP’s case. The American press took notice, amplifying the clash of drugs and terror in tuna politics. In the end the US postponed Andean partiality until the signing of an all-Americas free trade pact, perhaps next decade, by which time the Philippines would have sharpened tuna competitiveness.

In 2003 crisis struck again, this time in a decision by the California Public Employees Retirement System to withdraw from Manila. CalPERS, America’s biggest institutional investor, is bellwether for other financiers; its delisting of RP as investment destination would lead to downgrades by risk analysts. But as Manila economic managers braced for the worst, del Rosario refused to concede defeat. He and Fil-Am groups challenged RP’s failing mark given by CalPERS analysts, and sought openness in grading. CalPERS relented, not only granting Manila a "cure period" to address perceived deficiencies and releasing "exposure drafts" for countries to contest economic risk analyses, but also raising RP’s rating four notches by 2005. In CalPERS list, RP surpassed Malaysia, India, China and Russia.

Yet another fire broke out in 2004. US agents swooped down on a Pacific Rim telecoms convention in Honolulu, slapping Filipino attendees with subpoenas for supposed anti-trust breaches. Del Rosario protested the undue protection being given by US authorities to American telcos, to the detriment of free trade. Romulo’s consequent meeting as new foreign chief with US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales led to dropping of all charges. Del Rosario’s protests saved Philippine telcos millions of dollars in possible penalties and shielded them from jeopardy.

Being an entrepreneur, del Rosario focused on promoting American trade and investment to RP. He pushed into new fields like business outsourcing in animation, software development, medical and legal transcription, and architectural and engineering design. Call centers in Manila grew at a rate of 50-70 percent with the entry of big firms: Bechtel, Barnes and Noble, Caltex, Procter and Gamble, Motorola, Intel, Citibank, Convergys, Accenture, AIG, AOL and MCI, among others. UPS plunked $300 million into Clark Field as regional hub in 2002, and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. bought Napocor bonds and lent to the DBP, MWSS and LRT-2. His credibility and perseverance brought them in. So enthusiastic was del Rosario to meet them that he once shook hands with a hotel doorman whom he mistook for a congressman.

Del Rosario thought his job would be mainly pushing economic bids. But aside from greater RP-US teamwork in agriculture and energy, he took up security and legal ties as well. Was it prophetic? He was named envoy in May 2001 a week before the abduction of American missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham in Mindanao. His offer to be taken hostage in exchange for the release of the couple dramatized the two countries’ common cause against terrorism. During del Rosario’s tenure in 2001-2006, RP received $1.2 billion in US grants, mostly for the military and progress in terror-stricken Mindanao. The average annual increase during the period was 39 percent. Aid reached $228 million this year, the highest since the 1991 closure of US bases. This, despite US displeasure with RP’s opening with China (instead of America) of joint mineral exploration in the Spratlys, and the pullout of Filipino troops from Iraq.

Last July, Del Rosario suddenly and with no explanation was recalled to Manila, but that’s of no issue to him. In a departure ball thrown by Fil-Ams in California, he expressed no regrets serving the Arroyo government and asked them to help his successor the same way they taught him to help his countrymen. In separate tributes in Manila last week, Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye and Speaker Jose de Venecia recounted del Rosario’s long list of accomplishments as ambassador, for which he was awarded the Order of Sikatuna in 2004 and the People Power Heroes medal in 2005. Both affirmed that Albert del Rosario, the novice diplomat, was RP’s best envoy ever to Washington.

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