Very busy but gracious indeed is the lady

The last time I got you, dear readers, acquainted with yet another of the distinguished gentlemen and ladies occupying the top diplomatic positions in the country was a few months back, so I guess it’s time to get back into the groove.

It was another pleasant interview we had with H.E. Excellency Constantina Koliou, Ambassador of Greece to the Philippines at her office in Makati just before the Holy Week. Mme. Koliou has been in the country for about a year now, but many of our countrymen have yet to know the persona behind the name and distinguished title.

The lady ambassador studied at the University of Athens, graduating with degrees in Law and Political Science. I thought that was the first inkling that the lady ambassador had her career path clearly set out early on, but Mme. Koliou informed me that no one in her family was a lawyer or a diplomat. In fact both her parents ran their own separate businesses while she and her siblings were growing up in Athens where she stayed most of her growing up years.

She graduated in 1979, and by 1982 she was already with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where she stayed on till 1990 as deputy director at the Balkan, Central-Eastern European and USSR Economic Affairs Directorate. During this time, the lady diplomat had started her own family, and so stayed on in Athens to tend to her growing children.

By 1990, she set out on her first diplomatic assignment to Rome as deputy permanent representative of Greece in FAO, IFAD, WFP, a post she held for five years until 1995.

After five years in Italy, it was off to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to take charge of the consular office of her country in the vibrant city. It was during her stint as consul general of Greece that she picked up the language, and today she still speaks Portuguese fluently.

H.E. Constantina Koliou is conversant in English, French, and Italian apart from the Portuguese language, but it is only the latter that she actually picked up during her stay in the diplomatic post. Mme. Koliou shared that she has a certain facility with languages and can learn a new language with ease, certainly better than most of us.  The three other languages she learned even before she joined the diplomatic service.  Besides, she said, the Greek language is rather difficult to learn, so it was more convenient for her to learn other languages, especially in her chosen career.

It was in 2003, after a brief stint as director of the Diplomatic Cabinet of the Secretary General for Greeks abroad and as deputy director, Directorate for United Nations and International Organization and Conferences that the lady ambassador found herself in this part of the world. She was posted to Beijing as P.R. of China in the Greek Embassy as first counselor and Deputy Head of Mission.

The Philippines is actually her third Asian post, after Beijing and Macau/Hong Kong, so I asked her how different, or for that matter how similar she found Filipinos compared to our Chinese neighbors. The lady ambassador very candidly said that she found Filipinos more Mediterranean than Asian, more open and friendly, though very much still retaining our Asian flavor. Her first impressions of the Filipinos are that of a friendly and welcoming lot, “with an easy daily life.” She said that even our cuisine was so different, and when asked what her favorite Filipino dish was, after sampling so many during her one-year stay here, she immediately exclaimed: “I like very much Bicol Express!”

From Beijing, H.E. Koliou was posted for three years in Brussels with the NATO International Secretariat, the Policy and Planning Division at Defense as well as the Political Affairs and Security Policy Division.

Then it was back in Asia for the lady ambassador, as minister plenipotentiary – consul general of Greece in Hong Kong and Macau until 2011.

In January 2012, she set foot in the Philippines as ambassador-designate of her country.

She noted that our bilateral trade with her country at the moment is rather low. Greece exports mainly olive oil and olives as well as tea to the Philippines, but they give jobs to as many as 80,000 Filipino seafarers, shipping being the main industry of Greece. I asked her what efforts are being exerted to improve our trade relations – to start with, she just recently established a Filipino-Greek Chamber of Commerce here and this is set to be formalized by end of April. There is a counterpart Filipino-Greek Chamber of Commerce in Athens, and she is working on having both chambers work together to explore business opportunities that will be mutually beneficial. In Greece, she said, they have a good business environment and good investment opportunities in the ports, in transportation and pharmaceuticals among other sectors. She is also embarking on a trade mission, a joint effort between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, their embassy here and the chambers of commerce for Filipino businessmen to explore opportunities in Greece. The mission will be going to Athens within the year, so she hopes interested businessmen who hope to join the mission could make the proper representation with their embassy.

The Greek community in the Philippines is very small—they have less than a hundred here.  Conversely, we have a pretty large Filipino community in Greece numbering about 40,000.

The Greeks are known to be a passionate people, proud of their heritage and with strong family ties. Well, like most of her countrymen, the ambassador is proud to be Greek with a rich and ancient culture, the cradle of Western civilization.  She is proud to say that they have been using the same language for over 2,500 years, and if the Euro was not introduced, they would have been using the same currency for that long. Many features of their ancient culture are still very much present in their contemporary life now, she said, as she pointed out how important and vital it is for a people to keep their own identity, their own culture in the face of globalization. Very well said indeed Madame Ambassador.

Not too many Filipinos get to visit this land of an ancient yet vibrant culture.  Last year, they only had 2,000 visitors from the Philippines, yet the country had 17 million tourists in 2012. And to think that the population of Greece is only 11 million. Asian visitors account for only 30 percent of their tourists.

I relayed to the very kind lady ambassador that my family intends to visit Greece this summer, and she said we mustn’t miss the Acropolis and the beautiful islands which include the famous Santorini and Mikounos. They have 6,000 islands and islets in Greece, and being an island country, they consume less meat than fish and vegetables, more lamb than beef. The Greek salads, of course, must not be missed, together with their seafood specialties like octopus, etc.

Locally, H.E. Constantina Koliou enjoyed her trips to Boracay, Cebu and Bohol and proclaimed the sites as simply gorgeous.

Welcome to our country, Madame Ambassador.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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