Of covert rescues and fame chasers

IT has to be hammered repeatedly, if only to make people who continue to mislead realize how far they have come to justify their acts only to miserably fail.

It is not the covert rescue of distressed OFWs that is the main bone of contention. It is the uploading of the video of the covert operation that woefully reversed our fortunes from a country having the leverage, to one that is now accused of violating the sovereignty of another.

It is a well-accepted principle in international relations that our laws as a sovereign nation refuses or is unable to help in the rescue or extraction operations, more so if it is seen as a hostile adversarial party, or worse, if it is even complicit with the party from which our nationals should be rescued.

In the absence of the above conditions, any intervention that is uncoordinated will be taken by the host countries as an affront, a fundamental slap on their sovereign rights to implement their own laws within their jurisdictions.

This, however, does not stop any country from launching its own rescue and extraction operations to protect the rights and promote the welfare of its citizens even if the above conditions are not present. But in situations where it is uncoordinated with the host country, this is done through covert operations precisely because they are illegal. In being covert, names and parties involved are not revealed. In fact, independent agents are hired, or the help of non-government organizations are sought, to implement the operations to ensure deniability on the part of the government, particularly when things go wrong and the operations are discovered by authorities in the host countries.

The rescue and extraction operation of distressed OFWs in Kuwait would not have erupted into a major diplomatic crisis, and it would not have jeopardized our efforts to forge a deal with the Kuwaiti government on the fair treatment of our OFWs, and put at risk our career diplomats and OFWS left there, if it had been conducted properly.

In fact, it even behooves us to ask if it was indeed necessary to launch such a covert operation.

The diplomatic climate was already on our side. Kuwait was already in the mood to cooperate. It swiftly acted on the case of Joanna Demafelis when the couple who murdered her was convicted even in absentia in record time. We had the diplomatic leverage, with the President effectively in charge of the narrative. It would have been easy to ask the Kuwaiti authorities to facilitate the rescue of these distressed OFWs.

The risk of launching a covert operation which could seriously undermine our standing should have been weighed against the existence of such leverage. It was simply an amateurish move to have covertly launched such a rescue, when the situation was ripe for diplomatically arm-twisting the Kuwaitis to show sincerity and hold them to their commitment to protect the rights of our citizens under their own laws.

And granted that such covert operation was necessary, any rational diplomat would have known that it should have been held in

public disclosure of the parties involved should have been prevented at all cost. Furthermore,

- partment of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Manila and in the embassy in Kuwait should have been downplayed, if not avoided.

And yet what we saw was an utter lack of skills in covert operations, or even just of plain familiarity with diplomatic protocol, if not with international relations theory and practice. There was no attempt to make the operations secret. The order came from the Of

- seas and Migrant Workers Affairs ( OUMWA). Philippine- based diplomats were given charge of the operation, and some of them were even physically present to oversee the rescue.

And whatever the pretext of the operation being covert was blown to smithereens when the rescue was videotaped, and then shared

social media enablers. There is no other reason to - tion to chase fame.

Thus, what we have now is a chain of avoidable, unfortunate events.

First, we launched a covert rescue at a time when we had the diplomatic leverage to legitimately pressure the Kuwait government to cooperate with us.

Second, the planners of the covert operation did not make any effort to insulate our diplomatic institutions and processes, and instead even willingly embedded our diplomatic officials deep in the operation.

the secrecy of the operation by publicly posting and sharing it in social media.

What is unforgivable is when those behind or had any part in the unfolding of these unfortunate chain of events continue to justify it, from shifting the blame to others to appropriating political theory to

- come a major diplomatic blunder that created another cesspool that the President will have to clean up.

If these people have simple human decency, they should just apologize, resign and take the vow of silence, forever.

all of the roles he interprets whether singing or dancing. Special mention also for the work of Aynrand Ferrer, Ela Lisondra and in more recent productions, Michael Macalintal.

With the arrival of the extremely talented Aicelle Santos

from the accomplished performer Na-Young Jeon, the production has a safe and secure future in the hands of these performers.

I would ask that you continue to show your love and support for these performers, especially when they are back home. They are working very hard, very long hours to achieve outstanding results despite being separated for a long time from their families and friends. You can be rightly proud of them all!

On behalf of the UK and Irish audiences who have seen this show I thank all of these marvelous Filipino performers for creating wonderful memories to be remembered forever.

Ingatkayoha?

Dave

Birmingham, England