Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) welcomed the Philippines’ new top representative to Taiwan on Monday and said he hoped bilateral exchanges and cooperation will continue to strengthen during her tenure.
Lin met with Cheloy Garafil, the new head of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO), at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) Taipei headquarters on Monday, and highlighted the common interests and values shared by Taipei and Manila.
He said he hoped that cordial bilateral exchanges in several areas, including trade, fishing, agriculture, disaster prevention, education, and health care, will continue in the years to come, MOFA said in a statement.
Photo courtesy of MOFA
Garafil, meanwhile, said she was honored to be stationed in Taipei and was also happy to visit Taiwan for the first time.
She said she would do her best to promote bilateral cooperation on all fronts and people-to-people ties during her tenure, MOFA said.
Garafil, a former press secretary to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., assumed office as the chairperson and resident representative of MECO on Oct. 1, succeeding Silvestre III Hernando Bello.
MECO serves as the Philippines’ de facto embassy in Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic ties.
She previously served as head of the Philippines Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board and as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice during the administration of former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Prior to her government jobs, Garafil worked as a reporter at the Malaya newspaper and also as a stringer for Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
RSS