Elmer Cato. PHOTO from Elmer Cato’s Twitter account
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has reportedly approved the suggestion of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. that Philippine Embassy in Tripoli Chargé d’Affaires Elmer Cato be named ambassador to Libya.
Locsin made the announcement over Twitter on Wednesday in the wake of the ongoing conflict in Libya.
“It must have been after I announced that the President gave me the okay to make you ambassador so the last foreign post in Tripoli is complete with an ambassador should worse come to worst,” Locsin said.
“Keep safe but never be seen to take cover. Stiff upper lip. Way to go,” he added.
Locsin was reacting to an earlier tweet from Cato, who said that some of his colleagues checked on him after he was reportedly killed when the embassy came under rocket attack.
It must have been after I announced that the President gave me the okay to make you ambassador so the last foreign post in Tripoli is complete with an ambassador should worse come to worst. Keep safe but never be seen to take cover. Stiff upper lip. Way to go. https://t.co/rs0Osf5cLL
— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) June 18, 2019
“Please refer to him as Ambassador Cato. No man more deserves the title. I asked the President and he said for it. If the embassy falls with him in it I want it to be reported the embassy fell with its ambassador,” Locsin said in a separate tweet.
It must have been after I announced that the President gave me the okay to make you ambassador so the last foreign post in Tripoli is complete with an ambassador should worse come to worst. Keep safe but never be seen to take cover. Stiff upper lip. Way to go. https://t.co/rs0Osf5cLL
— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) June 18, 2019
However, no appointment paper has been released yet for Cato’s supposed new post.
Philippine ambassadors are appointed by the President and are confirmed by the powerful Commission on Appointments.
Cato, a journalist-turned-diplomat, took on his assignment as Chargé d’Affaires, en pied and Head of Mission at the Philippine Embassy in Tripoli with concurrent jurisdiction over Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Chad, Mali, and Niger in March 2019.
Before he was assigned to his current post in Libya, Cato served as acting Assistant Secretary of the Office of Strategic Communications and Research (OSCR) of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
He also previously served as Chargè d’Affaires of the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad. (Editor: Mike U. Frialde)