Chapter II: Ambassador Extraordinary and Envoy Plenipotentiary

II Ambassador Extraordinary and Envoy Plenipotentiary

AFTER EDSA I, a small group under Raul Manglapus, who almost single-handedly carried the torch of the Christian Democrats during his exile abroad, made efforts to regroup remnants of the government.

During President Corazon Aquino’s time, he was able to bring to Manila officials of the Christian Democrats International (CDI), which had its headquarters in Brussels. I recall a funny incident during the occasion of the CDI conference, which was held at the Manila Hotel. President Aquino was invited to open the conference at 9 o’clock. Fifteen minutes to nine the room was only partially full. Knowing how prompt the President always was, I quickly got Manila Hotel employees, including the waiters, to fill up the room to capacity to make the conference look better attended.

Subsequently, the Center for Christian Democracy was organized. I was appointed president. It was in one of our meetings of the Center that Manglapus, then Secretary of

Foreign Affairs, suggested that I go to the Quirinale (Rome) as Ambassador so that I could liaise with the local CDI. At the time the Italian Christian Democrats was at the apex of its political strength as the dominant party under its dynamic leader Giulio Andreotti, who was prime minister for many years.

The Democrazia Cristiana (DC) was a centrist political party in Italy. The DC was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People’s Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield (scudo crociato). A Roman Catholic, centrist, catch-all party comprising both right- and left-leaning political factions,

The Quirinal Palace, also known as the Palazzo del Quirinale, is a historic building in Rome and one of the three current official residences of the President of the Italian Republic. Located at the highest of the Seven Hills of Rome, it has housed thirty popes, four Kings of Italy and a dozen Presidents of the Italian Republic. The palace sits on over 100,000 square meters of land and easily dwarfs the White House, which is only onetwentieth of its size.

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