Ex-Air Force colonel named envoy to Myanmar

MANILA, Philippines - President Duterte has designated former Air Force colonel Eduardo Kapunan Jr. as ambassador to Myanmar.        

Kapunan’s designation is one of seven ambassadorial nominations the President has submitted to the Commission on Appointments (CA) for confirmation or rejection.

Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III, who is CA majority leader, told The STAR yesterday that the incoming envoy to Myanmar “is the same Red Kapunan who was one of the founding members of RAM (Reform the Armed Forces Movement) during the Marcos era.”        

He said he checked with Sen. Gregorio Honasan, a CA member, and was informed that Kapunan was the senator’s colleague in RAM.        

He said the ex-colonel’s nomination was dated Nov. 9.        

Honasan, along with scores of military officers disgruntled with the Marcos regime, founded RAM before the 1986 people power revolution.       

RAM members, then defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and Armed Forces vice chief of staff Fidel Ramos comprised the military component of the revolt that drove the Marcoses from power.        

Kapunan was implicated in the 1986 double murder case of labor leader Rolando Olalia and his driver Leonor Alay-ay, but an Antipolo City court has cleared him.

Kapunan is the newest addition to the growing list of political ambassadors.

Of the seven envoys nominated by Duterte, six are political appointees and only one is a career diplomat.

The lone career officer is Uriel Norman Garibay, whose posting is Kenya.

The five other political nominees and their assigned posts are former Makati congressman Teodoro Locsin Jr., United Nations in New York; James Lao, Brunei; Jose Laurel V, Japan; Jose Santiago Sta. Romana, China; and Shirley Vicario, Nigeria.

The CA bypassed the seven in October before Congress went on its two-week Halloween break.

According to Sen. Franklin Drilon, also a CA member, the 74-year-old Lao was bypassed for his alleged poor grasp of issues in his prospective assignment.

He said the nominee answered “I don’t know” several times in a CA hearing when asked how many Filipinos there were in Brunei, what kind of jobs they held, what their labor concerns were and what agreements the President signed in his visit to that country just days before.

Drilon has urged Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. and the President to consider appointing more career diplomats as ambassadors.

He said the ratio of recent political and career nominations was demoralizing the rank-and-file in the Department of Foreign Affairs.