UAE honors Filipino envoy with top award for ambassadors
ABU DHABI —Ambassador Hjayceelyn M. Quintana received the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Medal of Independence of the First Order from the Gulf States’ president Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The highest award bestowed on envoys who have served in the said country was conferred on Quintana by UAE’S Minister of State Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh on December 21, 2022 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. The award was given in recognition of the ambassador’s efforts and contributions in promoting closer relations between the Philippines and the UAE, and in expanding bilateral cooperation to new fields of endeavor.
On behalf of the Emirati government, Al Sayegh expressed his deep appreciation and warm congratulations to Quintana for her wideranging efforts in building robust and dynamic relations between both nations. The minister lauded her contributions toward the Philippines’s strong presence at the World Expo Dubai, where it signed with the UAE a commitment to enter into a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which is currently being negotiated.
“My primary goal in bringing our two countries closer is for the two sides to discover the intrinsic value of collaborating towards a shared goal, a better life for the next generation of Filipinos and Emiratis alike,” said Quintana. “I thank the [UAE] leadership…for sharing this vision, shown in the support they have given and through this recognition.”
Her four-year term saw the further expansion of the Philippines and UAE relations with the signing of bilateral treaties on consular cooperation, agriculture, investment protection and promotion, as well as space cooperation.
She also started negotiations on artificial intelligence and advanced technology, supervised bilateral meetings on ending human trafficking and labor cooperation responsible for the resumption of Filipino household-service workers’ deployment to the UAE, enabled the opening of the Philippine Defense and Armed Forces Attaché offices in Abu Dhabi, and established closer engagement with UAE’S defense conglomerate EDGE.