FOREIGN Affairs (DFA) Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. is working round-the-clock to advance Philippine moral leadership.
'First, on the frontlines worldwide; most are still unvaccinated. One ambassador died; another almost; two consular officers; scores in mortal danger. 'You don't hear them crying. Brave and true like Filipino nurses,' Locsin said during the Security, Justice and Peace Cabinet Cluster on July 15.
In human rights, the secretary said peace and security, protection of migrants, asserting our sovereignty, broadening cooperation and alliances, paid off.
'With the now finalized UN (United Nations) Joint Program, we strengthen national institutions to promote and protect human rights by technical assistance and capacity-building even as we battle the worst of human rights abuses: drug trafficking and drug addiction,' he stressed.
Locsin said the program is rooted in President Rodrigo Duterte's directive for constructive and open engagement with the UN in a non-politicized manner.
'The joint Philippines-Iceland resolution is a major victory for the Philippines' independent foreign policy. Nobody dictates to us how to protect our own people. But where we need it, we welcome help. Thank you, Justice Secretary Guevarra and UN Resident Coordinator Gustavo Gonzales,' he pointed out.
Locsin said the country is making progress in human rights while protecting its society from the worst of scourges: Drug trafficking taking over states in Central America and drug addiction destroying its willing victims.
The DFA chief also cited the country led in the formulation and adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons - the first legally binding international agreement.
'It makes nuclear weapons illegal in 122 countries and increasing. The world has less to guess where a nuclear attack came from and who to blame,' he said.
'We waded into the fight for women's rights, not the abstract kind. But the right to plain life and basic safety from widespread sexual abuses in the home, among trafficked women and children in brothels and alleyways, and to the military use of rape as the coward's weapon of degradation.
We were at the forefront in the fight for migrants' rights to decency, dignity, and protection from de facto slavery,' he added.
The President denounced the customary kafala system on the way to its promised reform.
'We laid down the terms of the migrant rights debate and shaped the Global Compact for Migration, not pie in the sky, but achievable because we had already negotiated those protections from Germany. Thank you, Germany,' Locsin also mentioned.
According to Locsin, the Philippines deepened its engagement with the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. 'And we went to Rome, not as victims but proudly as victors, having vanquished ISIS in Mindanao by retaking Marawi with the bracing battle ratio of over 1,000 local and foreign jihadi dead, to 165 AFP soldiers - to our grief. And the republic's glory.'
'We denied terrorism the lying excuse it is the response of the poor to injustice. The poor are never terrorists. Terrorists are a privileged breed. Terrorism is a full-time job. There is no solution for it but to stamp it out as I told the Global Coalition,' he said.
Locsin advised some to stop whining and crying over milk spilled by the previous regime.
'We have not surrendered a single inch of territory. Not by word or deed have we weakened our right to everything in the West Philippine Sea,' he pointed out.
Most of all we did what foreign policy must do or spare the expense of this department: Protect our citizens abroad and foreign nationals in our country. It isn't usually done by foreign states, but we helped foreign nationals caught flat-footed here by the pandemic - on a scale unknown in the past. With the best foreign ambassadors ever, - and the energy and initiative of Berna Puyat - thousands of foreign nationals were rounded up and sent home,' he further remarked.
'The world watched with wonder. Then we took out of harm's way and over 400,000 overseas Filipinos and brought them safely home,' he said. JAVIER JOE ISMAEL