The newly-minted Secretary of Foreign Affairs recently spoke before the United Nations General Assembly, subbing for the country’s foreign affairs policy-maker, President Rodrigo Duterte.
Normally, heads of government are invited to the annual hegira at New York. But the President was yet anxious about the crisis in Marawi, and asked his foreign secretary to represent the country.
Alan Peter S. Cayetano has of course been to several capitals in the past, in Europe, in China, in South Korea and elsewhere. But facing the General Assembly and defending the rather controversial Philippine “war” on drugs is his first real debut on the world stage.
Both in his East Side address and subsequent interviews and statements in New York, Cayetano, defended the actions of the Duterte government in addressing a problem that the rich countries of the world would rather view in terms of the rose-tinted glasses of rehabilitation and humanitarian consideration rather than the brutal cost to peace and order that bedevils the poorer countries confronted by this evil pandemic of illegal drugs.
And when the rich countries, particularly the members of the European Union pressed for an investigation of the alleged human rights abuses consequent to Duterte’s mission to eradicate or at least bring to a minimal level the prevalence of drugs in our country, Secretary Cayetano said fine, but not on your terms.
Be fair, Cayetano said.
And being fair means sending a mission that has not prejudged my country, he added, without specifying Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur who has already condemned the government just as the war on drugs was starting yet.
Alan Peter, the Senate’s resident graft-muckraker in the past, has learned to be quite diplomatic.
Meeting with the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres in New York, Cayetano said that “we will fully cooperate and work with you on a rational, open, fair dialogue on our campaign against crime and illegal drugs”.
“There are real problems but perceptions have overtaken us in Western media that make it appear the situation is worse than it actually is,” he explained.
Cayetano assured Gutteres that the campaign against crime and illegal drugs is not intended to violate human rights. “It is intended to protect the human rights of our people”, he said, a nice play on words that is vintage Alan.
As Duterte supporters say, “paano naman yung mga karapatan ng mga biktima ng droga?”
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On something that matters more to locals, particularly those who need a passport to the proverbial greener pastures, Alan Cayetano as the new foreign affairs top honcho has instituted quick measures to shorten the long lines and cool the rising tempers in the DFA’s consular affairs division.
In my last visit to Manila, I chanced upon some of his staff huddled with systems professionals in a BGC hotel where I was meeting with economic zone executives. Their topic: how to make the system easier for Filipinos applying for a passport.
Two or three weeks later, while in Taipei, I read about the new rules that DFA is implementing to alleviate the plight of passport applicants and cut down on the processing time. That was quick!
That’s focusing on systems, which this column consistently advocates, in whatever agency of government. Be it Customs, or the NBI, or the LTO, or the DFA, wherever and whatever insofar as transacting with government is concerned, one should look at the systems, what ails it, and how to improve upon it.
From motor mouth to quick doer, the metamorphosis of Alan Peter Cayetano is quite remarkable.