Covering the diplomatic beat, covering the world
By Veronica Uy
WHEN I was given this assignment, the Department of Foreign Affairs was in a tizzy it had not known before. Three Filipinos on death row in China had just been executed. Some Filipinos had been evacuated from Egypt but only after the DFA was criticized for dragging its feet on evacuating them. Some Filipinos had been trapped under a collapsed building after an earthquake in New Zealand. Then Libya erupted, prompting a bigger evacuation for possibly 30,000 Filipinos. Japan’s earthquake also shook the DFA—what with the 200,000 Filipinos there who still fall under its ambit.
In the middle of this chaos, a couple of us came out with a story that had the high echelons of the DFA in another type of fit, and looking for a mole. The offensive story? The DFA’s evacuation master plan for the Middle East had been lying underneath piles of paper, perhaps read once, but never implemented—and at this most crucial time, it said a lot about the DFA’s foresight and preparedness. (Understandably, this story was not played up very much considering the bigger OFW issues of the day, but internally, the DFA was shaken.)
It wasn’t so much exposing that the plan had been ignored that got them, it was the idea that one of them had tipped off the media about it. It was about having a rat among them. That’s the thing with DFA people, they still have the Cold War mentality, as if “Top Secret” and “Confidential” meant anything among gossipy Filipinos. And what national security wall had been breached? Nada. Just some top honcho’s inability to out in place and implement the spot-on, comprehensive plan.
Unlike covering politicians, whose usually inane opinions make the news, covering diplomats (who can also be inane) takes a lot of groundwork, building trust, understanding their special language, and breaking down ideas into chewable form (when I pitched in for a colleague to cover an APEC briefing, my very first time at the DFA, I felt that the words coming out of the main man at the press con were covered with clouds. I could understand the words by themselves, but altogether they did not make sense to me). Which can bring a newbie to the conclusion that diplomacy is about talking a lot without saying anything.
And when you do find something newsworthy in what they’re saying, nobody is usually willing to attach his name to the quote. Protocol. That’s another thing at DFA. The rules and hierarchy are clear. So when you find—or more precisely, are able to cultivate a “friendship” with—a diplomat who has access to documents, that’s a gold mine. Because then the source won’t have to go on record.
DFA people pride themselves in supposedly being the smartest in the bureaucracy. Out of, say 2,000 who take the foreign-service exam, only 30 will get to the next level. Finally, only 3, as in the case of former presidential daughter Luli Arroyo, will finally wear the FSO4 badge. So you sense that pride when you mingle with them. “I swam through 10,000 kilometers of texts to get here,” their gait sort of tells you. It’s a like being with a bunch of cocky reporters.
Covering the DFA is also like collecting stamps. You learn about geography, history, politics, even national flowers and dances from all over the world—without packing your bags and taking off. And these lessons come not only during press conferences or forums, they come also during cocktail parties (which I like) and visits to foreign lands (which I like more).
The past couple of months at the DFA have been abnormal, to say the least. The upheavals in MENA (Middle East-North Africa) have been described as a “tsunami of awareness” sweeping across the region comparable perhaps to the one that Europe experienced in the 1800s. But a normal day is really very boring and routine: Check out the news of the day (including world news that more often than not will involve a Filipino), find out if there’s anything connected to the beat, and go after the follow-up. But mostly, you have to be curious. What do I want to find out today? Or if no idea is gnawing at you, you try and go around the DFA (which can be a little daunting given that security requires a different ID for specific floors and that your prospective interviewee may not welcome your visit).
Covering the diplomatic beat also entails going to forums and press conferences organized by embassies on topics ranging from climate change to visa issues to Balikatan to development cooperation (aid) to business opportunities.
A new reporter once called the DFA the alphabet soup beat because you have to be able to catch the shortcuts thrown around in conversations and interviews: SOM, ARF, and ASEM, for instance, are not the sounds of meditation or a dog, or a sour taste. (By the way, they stand for Senior Officials’ Meeting, Asia Regional Forum, and Asia-Europe Meeting.)
And more than the jargon is the minutiae in the language used, especially in documents that sources might only show you, but not allow you to copy (here an eidetic memory is most useful, or else a camera). Relationships between countries are like any relationship, except it involves huge numbers of people represented by the best and the brightest. You talk, you party, you visit each other, you engage in business, and sometimes you fight, which diplomacy seeks to avoid at all costs.
But the two things I love most about covering this beat is self-awareness—about who we are as a people. Just as we can only recognize black in contrast to white can we recognize our Filipino-ness in dealing with the “others,” who turn out to be just like you and me—surviving and struggling to make the best of what the world throws at you, and helping each other out.
……………………………………………
Veronica Uy is formerly of inquirer.net. She now writes for InterAksyon.com
[…] Covering the Diplomatic Beat, Covering the World by Veronica Uy […]