US envoy mum on Clinton aide's 'rude treatment' of VP Binay

Claiming he did not witness what happened, United States Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas Jr preferred not to give a comment on the alleged rude treatment of an aide of visiting former US President William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton on Vice President Jejomar Binay. Negros-based news site Visayan Daily Star on Saturday quoted Thomas, who was in Bacolod City Friday, as saying he did not know what happened to Binay because he was not at the scene when the “shouting" happened inside the Manila Hotel. “I was outside talking to some friends and he [Binay] came outside, we took a photo together, we walked to our chairs together," Thomas said. He added he was in the holding room but had exited before Binay did. But he said he saw Clinton greeting Binay and former presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Fidel Ramos. Binay had narrated an incident at The Manila Hotel where an aide of Clinton shouted at him to get out of the area. He said he complied but introduced himself to the aide, who apologized. On Thursday evening, the US Embassy's Facebook site greeted Binay a happy birthday. Clinton was in the Philippines Wednesday to deliver a talk on globalization. He left Manila early Thursday. Meanwhile, Thomas was in Bacolod to swear in a new batch of American Peace Corps volunteers. He said it is safe for the US to field its Peace Corps volunteers in the Philippines despite a travel advisory it issued for Americans in the country. “If we did not think these people would be safe then we would look into it again. Our travel warning is constantly under review and has been in place since 2005," he said. Thomas swore in on Friday 71 new Peace Corps volunteers at the Negros Occidental Capitol in Bacolod City, simultaneously with the swearing in of 63 others in Pasig City in Metro Manila. Peace Corps volunteers have been working in Philippine villages for over 49 years, trying to assist the less fortunate, he said. “We have all left a lot behind us to come to this amazing beautiful country to share our skills with the most-welcoming Filipinos," volunteer Heather Dozier said in the Visayan Daily Star article. She said some of them had just graduated while others just wanted to change careers. “We are all very excited to be here," she added. Volunteer Ian Ralston said “we are all exceptionally eager to see the fruits of our volunteer work manifest themselves as sustainable realities in our respective sites." Stacie Self, who will be working with Welcome Home Foundation Inc., a ministry for the deaf, said on this day [swearing in] they will begin a new adventurous chapter in their lives as Peace Corps volunteers. — LBG, GMANews.TV