SFA-AGR-082-08

AMBASSADOR GARCIA PRESENTS HER LETTERS OF CREDENCE

TO PRESIDENT SHIMON PERES OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

28 March 2008 – Ambassador Petronila P. Garcia presented her Letters of Credence as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the State of Israel to His Excellency President Shimon Peres on 19 March  at Beit Hanassi (President’s House) in Jerusalem.

Ambassador Garcia, accompanied by Third Secretary and Vice Consul Thaddeus T. Hamoy, Third Secretary and Vice Consul Bertrand Theodor Santos, Labor Attaché Merriam Cuasay, and her son Angelo Victor Garcia, were warmly welcomed by the President.

President Peres opened the meeting after the presentation with a toast to Israel and the Philippines.  The President expressed his recognition for the Philippines’ humanitarian deed of opening its doors to Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.  

In response, Ambassador Garcia conveyed the greetings of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s on the 60^th Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.  She also thanked the President for the good treatment of the Filipino workers in Israel. 

President Peres then expressed his view that “Filipinos may be foreign workers, but are not foreigners to us.”

President Peres and ranking Israeli Government officials were very impressed by the Philippine officials who were resplendent in their Filipiniana attire for the occasion.  END

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