FRANCISCO S. TATAD
THE Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. is arguably the most important diplomatic post in the Philippine foreign service, the United States being the country’s oldest and most important political ally and the biggest economy in the world. According to the 2010 census, there are at least 3.4 million Filipinos and Filipino Americans in the US, the second biggest Asian American group next to the Chinese, and the biggest Filipino grouping anywhere in the world. And yet from the time President Rodrigo Duterte took office until last week, it took him more than a year to nominate a Philippine ambassador to the US.