GOVPH

Philippine Embassy Participates in the ASEAN Bowling Friendship Games

The Philippine Embassy participated in the ASEAN Bowling Friendship Games in Brussels on 10 March 2024.

The games were hosted by Lao PDR, current chair of the ASEAN Brussels Committee (ABC).

All the Embassies of ASEAN Member States and the Embassy of Timor-Leste in Brussels participated in the games. Team Philippines won second place overall.

Philippines and EU Commission Discuss Multi-Faceted Partnership on Maritime Cooperation

Philippine Ambassador Jaime Victor Ledda (center) with the Philippine delegation from the Department of Transportation (DOTr) led by Undersecretary for Maritime Elmer Francisco U. Sarmiento (second from the right) with Maritime Industry Authority Administrator Sonia Malaluan (first from the right) along with Mr. Gerardo Borromeo, Chairman of the MARINA Multi-Sector Governance Council (second from the left) and Brussels PE Minister Susana Maria L. Mendiola (first on the left) taking a photo during their courtesy call at the Philippine Embassy in Brussels. (Photo courtesy of Mr. Gerardo Borromeo). 

On 07 March 2024 in Brussels, Undersecretary for Maritime Elmer U. Sarmiento of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) met with Deputy Director Fotini Ioannidou of the EU Commission Directorate General - Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) and discussed current and future collaboration in the maritime field, going beyond STCW compliance. It was an opportune occasion for the two sides to reaffirm their partnership considering the safety and security challenges that seafarers and the shipping industry are now facing.

Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) Administrator Sonia Malaluan, who assumed recently in November 2023, assured DG MOVE of the Philippine government’s serious efforts towards innovation, digitalization, and enabling reforms in MARINA. Representing the private sector, MARINA Multi-Sectoral Governance Chairman Gerardo A. Borromeo shared that the confidence level of the industry has been boosted by the Philippine government’s earnest policy measures and resource mobilization for modernization and sustainability.

Read more: Philippines and EU Commission Discuss Multi-Faceted Partnership on Maritime Cooperation

EMBASSY HOSTS HALO-HALONG HIBLA-HIBLA, A COLLABORATIVE WOMEN’S ART EXHIBIT, ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

The Philippine Embassy in Brussels hosted the HALO-HALONG HIBLA-HIBLA art exhibit, co-organized with BeLikha Art Collective and the Philippine Arts and Culture Exchange (PACE), on 08 March 2024, International Women's Day, at the Embassy Chancery. The exhibit celebrates National Arts Month (February 2024) and National Women's Month (March 2024).

Halo-Halong Hibla-Hibla was a fabric assemblage workshop held on 17 February 2024 where participants came together to learn sewing techniques and make their own works of art. These works were put together to create a single collaborative artwork, which was revealed during the opening of the exhibit. Curator Sam Domingo explains that the artwork weaves together the stories of Filipino women who leave the Philippines seeking personal emancipation, but who find that oppression takes a different form in a different country. Thus, "equality among women, achieved through communal liberation, demands that everyone beget respect for one another, from one woman to another and from one living being to another."

The exhibit also features artworks by Filipino women artists in Belgium — Aurea Calanog, Chiara Capony, Amy Dilao, Amihan de Sosa, Mylene Factora, Cybele Ku, Anna Beth Santilla, May Tabalon Cornelissen, and Suzette Villanueva.

The exhibit is open to the public at the Embassy Chancery until 26 March 2024.