Filipino CG Feels Happy and Sad as he Ends Jeddah Stint
Philippine Consul General Leo Tito L. Ausan, Jr.
RIYADH: Philippine Consul General Leo Tito L. Ausan, Jr. feels a mixture of happiness and sadness as he ends his tour of duty in the Kingdom on July 24.
He is happy because he and his wife are returning to their home country, the Philippines, where he would be posted for a few years before reassignment overseas. He is sad because they would be leaving behind friends with whom they have spent wonderful moments in the Kingdom.
“While I look forward to a meaningful stint back home, I look back with self-fulfillment during my posting in Saudi Arabia. It is in Jeddah where I have used, so to speak, all the skills that God has endowed me. I also had to be in tip-top shape. And for this reason, I can say that it is here where I had my most memorable moments while in the service of my country,” he said.
He said that he will sorely miss Jeddah because this is a place where “I am wide awake, seemingly never sleep, with unceasing opportunities in serving my countrymen.”
“If your wish, when you entered the foreign service, was to serve your countrymen, then the place to be in is Jeddah. Opportunities abound,” said Ausan.
In recent days, he was very busy in Jazan helping Filipino evacuees from Yemen. He is part of the crisis management team created by Ambassador Ezzedin H. Tago to respond to the conflict in Yemen.
Ausan’s duty was to welcome evacuees and make sure that they had comfortable accommodations before their flight back to the Philippines. In Najran, where five Filipino workers were injured, Ausan and his team had to set up a local contingency plan.
He said that rockets and mortar shells from rebels inside Yemen were falling so they had to do something, without repatriating those affected since to do so would make them lose their jobs and “we did not want that. We made them secure from those rockets and mortar shells.”
“There can be no more meaningful service to your countrymen than putting your life on the line. For whatever success I achieved while serving here, I also want to thank the Kingdom and its leadership,” he said.