(Ambassador Elmer G. Cato trains his scope on areas of conflict from the rooftop of the Philippine embassy in Tripoli. FB Photograb)
CLARK FREEPORT – The Pampanga Press Club (PPC) has welcomed the announcement of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. that President Duterte has approved the appointment of Elmer G. Cato as Philippine Ambassador to Libya.
With the rank of Chief of Mission Class 2, Cato was Chargé d Affaires and Head of Mission in Baghdad, Iraq another conflict zone for three years, at the height of the terrorist bombings by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Into his first week in Baghdad, Cato survived a suicide car bombing of the hotel he was staying in that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded. That attack was claimed by ISIS in 2015.
He was recalled in 2018 by former Foreign Affairs Secretary Allan Peter Cayetano and served as assistant Foreign Affairs Secretary for Public Diplomacy.
Cato was Serving in Washington DC when he volunteered to go to Baghdad.
Early this year, he volunteered to go to Tripoli. Cato was a former overseas worker who was a reporter in Saudi Arabia and an editor in Jakarta, Indonesia.
He served with the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in New York from 2003 to 2010.
He is a recipient of the Gawad Mabini, one of the highest national decorations for Filipino diplomats, for initiating the transfer of DFA passport offices to shopping malls nationwide.
Cato, a most outstanding Kapampangan awardee, was a journalist from 1983 to 1998 and an esteemed member of the PPC, founded in 1949, which makes it among the oldest, if not the oldest, oldest press club in the country.
Cato’s intensive background as a reporter and an OFW in the Middle East during his younger days gave him enough experience with his work as a diplomat.
The PPC said Locsin made the right move by recommending Cato to be designated ambassador as this would allow him to serve our OFWs in Libya better and expand relations with other countries under his jurisdiction.
Cato, who developed a reputation as a fearless reporter often mingling with hardcore communists just to get a story right, had served in a crisis post in Baghdad and now in Tripoli where only few diplomats would want to go because of the grave risks they will be exposed to.
The ongoing conflict in Libya has already left almost 700 dead since April.
But Cato continues to be adamant as he insists on staying in Tripoli to look after the welfare of Filipinos there and remained steadfast in his responsibilities as an official of the Philippine government.
Locsin said Duterte gave him the okay to make Cato ambassador. “Should worse come to worst. Please refer to him as Ambassador Cato. No man more deserves the title. I asked the President and he said okay for it. If the embassy falls with him in it, I want it to be reported that the embassy fell with its ambassador,” Locsin said on Twitter.
