We had reasons to be worried. For us to be able to get to Misrata, we would have to take the Coastal Highway and that highway cuts through Garabolli. And with clashes reportedly taking place there, the highway is no longer passable.
Month: April 2020
Misadventure at Mt. Pinatubo
"A US Navy SEAL is supposed to be missing in Pinatubo,” Lieutenant Miraflor told us. Apparently, the American service member, who was among those taking part in ongoing bilateral exercises in Subic, failed to return from a trek to Mount Pinatubo and was presumed missing.
Encounters with Amang
From where he was seated, Blas Fajardo Ople, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines, asked me where I was being proposed for my first foreign assignment. I told him I was being groomed as Vice Consul at the Philippine Consulate General or as Third Secretary at the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in New York.
Exile
Fly Dubai FZ211 bound for Baghdad was half empty compared to the flight to Jeddah that was scheduled to leave the same time from Terminal 4 of Dubai International. As the Boeing 737 taxied, the onboard entertainment system began showing "American Sniper." Quite timely, I told myself. Is it an indication of things to come? In my bag was the book "Green Zone" that Chuchay and Butch Fernandez gave as a going away present.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary
If he asked, I would tell him the story of how a few days after we repatriated the remains of the 13 overseas workers who died in the fire at the Capitol Hotel in Erbil, three Filipinas came running after us. They introduced themselves as teachers and said they just wanted to shake our hands and thank us for reuniting the victims, who they did not even know, with their families back in the Philippines: “It usually takes weeks but the Embassy was able to send them home in just seven days,” they told us. “That really means a lot to their loved ones.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONTLINE 