Romualdez and Frasco should be fired
IT’S been three weeks since May 8, when the US State Department issued a “travel advisory” telling its citizens (and the rest of the world, really) that they should not travel to the Sulu archipelago, Marawi City, Cagayan de Oro and 12 other major Mindanao cities due “to crime, terrorism and civil unrest.”
Yet we haven’t heard anything from the two officials who should be dealing with this defamation by the Americans: our ambassador to the US Jose (“Babe”) Romualdez and Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco. They haven’t told the nation what have they done to explain to the US that their travel warning is wrong, and based on inaccurate information and that they should treat us as friends. Even serfs deserve better: after all, this government has become the US proxy and spokesman in its belligerence toward China.
This government even has allowed the use of nine of our bases for their military, designated as sites for the implementation of its Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which has put us in the crosshairs of Chinese missiles in case of a Sino-US war. At least one has installed the US Typhon missile system, capable of launching the medium-range Tomahawk missiles.
The irony — or stupidity — of the US travel warning is that it includes Cagayan de Oro City, where located is the Lumba Air Base, which is an EDCA site that has the same airstrip as the Cagayan de Oro International Airport.
The US travel warning against our 15 very safe Mindanao cities has put them in the same “Level 3” category of incontrovertibly dangerous countries, where there are civil wars or where peace and order has totally broken down: Burundi, Chad, Nigeria, Colombia, Ethiopia, Mozambique. Of course, the US State Department excluded from its travel warning tiny Siargao island, a favorite surfing site, obviously enjoyed by the American embassy junior staff.
Crisis
Of what use are Romualdez and Frasco when in this crisis they’re not saying anything, and not scrambling to convince US officials — start with the US ambassador — to roll back their travel warning?
I was shocked that Romualdez’s column in the Philippine Star (owned through corporate layers and Manuel V. Pangilinan by Indonesian tycoon Anthoni Salim) was a paean to the US: “Next year is the 80th anniversary of US-Philippines diplomatic relations — a historic milestone that underscores the depth and strength of our ties that have remained solid despite the occasional bumps along the way — with the bond between our two nations withstanding the test of time.”
So shameless that he could write that at a time when the US clearly demonstrated its lack of concern for us, and even insulted us by excluding its staff’s favorite surfing site destination, Siargao, in its warning while scaring Americans not to travel to our big Mindanao cities like General Santos and Cagayan de Oro. I wonder where Romualdez has been in the past several weeks.
Romualdez may be overstaying in his post far too long — eight years, exhausted, or so used to this administration’s kiss-American-ass-always policy — that he doesn’t seem to be doing anything to get the Americans to lift their travel warning on Mindanao cities. Maybe he was too successful during the Biden administration, becoming friends with US administration officials at the time that the new Trump officials are wary of him.
Unable
Indeed, my sources claim that despite so many efforts, Romualdez has not been able to meet or even talk over the phone with the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, nor with any of his deputies, assistants and Asia-Pacific director.
Romualdez, however, seemed to try to portray that he had talked to Rubio when he announced in March that the US secretary of state was planning to visit the Philippines in April. Rubio didn’t and hasn’t announced any plans to visit the Philippines.
Shocking is the fact that our embassy in Washington does not even mention the travel warning. At least it could have declared: “The US state department has issued a travel warning asking its citizens not to travel to certain areas in Mindanao. We protest such a warning and are communicating with US authorities to explain to them that this is unnecessary and that the Mindanao cities they warned citizens not to travel to are safe.” If the ambassador was bold, he could have even pointed out: “We have had no mass shootings killing people at random. This year alone, as of April 30, the US has had 117 such shootings, resulting in 155 killed and 443 wounded.”
It won’t be too difficult to find a replacement, a much better one, I think, than Romualdez: property tycoon, a Marcos ambassador-at-large Jose E.B. Antonio, who had been US President Trump’s buddy even before he ran for the White House in 2016. In fact, Antonio’s Century Properties built back in 2012 the only “Trump Tower” in the country, a 56-story luxury condominium in Makati. Antonio’s sons Jigger, Marco and Carlo were reportedly friends with Trump’s daughter Ivanka starting when they were in business school in Wharton.
Ineffective
Apparently also doing nothing — even oblivious to the crisis they should be addressing — as Romualdez is Tourism Secretary Chirstina Garcia Frasco. She is the daughter of the former Cebu governor Gwen Garcia, who was toppled in the recent elections by a political newbie, Pamela Baricuatro, which was a powerful demonstration of the Dutertes’ power to unseat even a longstanding governor. Frasco’s position as tourism secretary has apparently less to do with her qualifications than an accommodation to her mother, the then Cebu governor. Frasco is a lawyer and has had no experience in marketing nor running a tourist company.
I wonder if Frasco had spent too much time campaigning for her mother and then consoling her in her defeat that she seems oblivious to the US travel ban. She should be in the US and even mobilizing tourism associations and talking to US officials to lift the ban, which will hit hard our travel industry.
The tourism department’s website should be showing articles declaring that the US travel ban was based on wrong information and unfair to the country, and that her staff would be doing everything they can to get the US to lift the warning. She should have even flooded YouTube with videos of tourists enjoying such cities as Cagayan de Oro and General Santos that the travel ban claimed were unsafe places to travel to.
Nothing. Instead, the website’s main article was a shameless appeal purportedly by “stakeholders” for the president not to accept Frasco’s courtesy resignation. Instead of travel associations attesting to the safeness of Mindanao areas that the US deems as dangerous to visit, they were attesting to Frasco’s excellence in running the department.
The article even had the syrupy title: “Love begets love: Support from stakeholder pours in for DOT chief.” Of course she’ll claim she had nothing to do with the contents of the website of the department she runs.
Fiasco
Frasco’s is the only department whose website is appealing to the president not to accept its head’s courtesy resignation. Jeez.
“Frasco’s Fiasco” had become controversial when, in 2023, she launched her own tourism slogan, “Love the Philippines,” replacing the long-running “It’s More Fun in the Philippines!” through an expensive video made by a private company.
It was discovered, though, that the promotional video featured stock footage not from the Philippines, but from other countries such as Indonesia, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland. This revelation sparked widespread public and political backlash, as the campaign was meant to highlight the unique beauty and culture of the Philippines, not foreign destinations.
Despite the fiasco, Frasco defiantly decided to retain the “Love the Philippines” slogan, continuing to use it in official materials and events.
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Romualdez and Frasco should be fired
Source: Breaking News PH
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