Over 200 Pinoys in Iran gather for PHL Independence Day rites

More than 200 Filipinos from all over Iran traveled by plane, trains, cars, buses to Iran to celebrate the 113th Philippine Independence Day, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said. The DFA said the Philippine Embassy in Tehran hosted a reception for the Filipino community on June 10 and another one for the Diplomatic Corps June 12. The Independence Day festivities started with the flag-raising ceremony at 9:00 a.m., followed by a reciting of the pledge of allegiance to the flag, and the reading of the messages of President Benigno Aquino III and DFA Secretary Albert del Rosario. There was also cultural program featuring Filipino folk dances and songs performed by Embassy personnel and community members. At noon, a lunch of native Filipino cuisine was served to the guests. The DFA said many of those who joined the reception have been in Iran since the early 1970s and 1980s, the DFA said. Those who welcomed the Filipinos were Embassy officials led by Charge d' Affaires Mariano Dumia and his wife Gloria, and Minister and Consul General Rosario Lemque. Also present during the celebration were the officers of the Filipino community associations in Iran as well as Fr. Paul Lawlor, parish priest at St. Abraham's Church in Tehran. Lawlor has been a long-time spiritual adviser of Filipinos. The guests also included the Director of the First Department for Southeast Asia and Oceania Mohammad Azad and the Deputy Director General of the General Protocol Department Mohammad Raeisi, who was Iran's former ambassador to the Philippines. From the diplomatic corps, the guests included ambassador of the State of Palestine and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps Salah Zawawi, Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Jean-Paul Gobel, ambassadors and charge d' affaires of ASEAN member countries. One of the Filipinos who joined the celebration, Meraida Hatami of Cagayan Valley, said "I miss the Philippines and I feel proud as a Filipino every time I hear the national anthem. For the first time, I felt I was in the Philippines," said , the DFA said in a news release posted on its website. Hatami, the Filipino community coordinator in Kish Island, flew in from the resort island of Kish along the Persian Gulf to join the celebration. Salve Faramarzi, the Filipino coordinator in the northeastern region, traveled by car with her Iranian husband and children for almost four hours to the Embassy from Semnan. "We became nostalgic about our beloved country," said Faramarzi. - VVP, GMA News