AMBASSADOR TIGLAO PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO PRESIDENT OF GREECE

15 June 2006 — Philippine Ambassador to Athens, Greece Rigoberto D. Tiglao reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs that, on 14 June 2006, he presented his Credentials as Ambassador of the Philippines to H. E. Karolos Papoulias, President of the Hellenic Republic, at the Presidential Palace in Athens.

Ambassador Tiglao said that during his conversation with President Papoulias, he conveyed the greetings of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as well as her gratitude for the donations extended by Greece for the victims of the December 2004 typhoons and the February 2006 landslide in Southern Leyte.

President Papoulias then inquired as to how the rehabilitation of the landslide-hit areas had gone, and the Ambassador replied that the people of Southern Leyte have managed to rebuild their homes using the donations from Greece and other countries, which had been utilized very efficiently for the purpose.

Ambassador Tiglao likewise conveyed President Arroyo’s thanks to the people of Greece for their kind and professional treatment of the 25,000 Filipinos working in Greece.  The Ambassador informed President Papoulias that among the Filipino community in Greece, around 5,000 are seafarers working aboard Greek-owned and registered vessels, and that Filipino seafarers now comprise 20% of the world's seafarers.

Ambassador Tiglao likewise informed President Papoulias of their shared similar political experience, both having fought military dictatorship in the 1970s and imprisoned for doing so.  He added that many Filipinos involved in the movement that toppled the Marcos dictatorship and resulted in the People Power Revolution in 1986 drew inspiration from the largely peaceful revolution in Greece against the colonels junta in 1974.

As President Papoulias, from his exile abroad, was in the forefront of the movement against the colonels junta in Greece in the 1970s, Ambassador Tiglao remarked that a Greek and a personal friend, Mr. Steve Psinakis, from his exile in the US helped much in the anti-dictatorship movement in the Philippines

The Ambassador said that President Papoulias was elated at this information and remarked that many of his close friends were imprisoned and even executed in the fight against the military dictatorship but that it was their duty to do so, especially as Greece has been the cradle of democracy.

Ambassador Tiglao further reported that President Papoulias was pleased that the  Philippines designated an Ambassador to Greece who is a fighter for democracy. 

First Secretary Eleanor L. Jaucian and Third Secretary Patricia V. Barrera accompanied Ambassador Tiglao during the presentation ceremony. END

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