Lisbon.
It’s been on everyone’s lips, minds, and bucket lists. And I had the privilege of having front row seats to what was until recently Europe’s most underrated capital.
After all, until a month ago, I was, for the past six years and five months, the Philippine Ambassador to Portugal.
My journey to Lisbon started on 22 May 2017, when I arrived a few days after the 100th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady to the shepherd children in Cova da Iria in Fatima on 13 May 2017. The Pope had since left Portugal, and the Portuguese Foreign Ministry Protocol officials had time to rest after a most hectic celebration which took place 124 km north of Lisbon. After some 18 hours of flying from Manila, I arrived at the Dignitaries Lounge of the Lisbon Airport all dressed in my official black dress, dark stockings, and medium-heeled black shoes to the warm welcome of Margarida, the protocol officer of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
I must admit that my first few weeks as Ambassador were rather unnerving. After all, I had been preparing a mere 27 years for this day. You see, as a Foreign Service Officer (I passed the Foreign Service Examinations in 1989 and joined the Department of Foreign Affairs or DFA in June 1990), you always dream of the day when you yourself would become the Ambassador and heading your own Foreign Service Post—and for me, this was my time. This was it.
Showtime, I told myself.
Since I speak Portuguese (and Spanish) fluently (I studied Portuguese before joining the DFA, which was put to practice at my first posting in Brasilia in 1992), my anxieties slowly dissipated as the charm of the city and people of Lisbon began to grow on me. I suddenly felt at ease and at home in Lisbon. I began to fall in love with Lisbon.
Evening photo of the Largo de Figueriedo in the Lapa area of Lisbon, 55 steps from the author’s residence. ‘Largo’ is another Portuguese name for ‘square’ or ‘plaza.’ This square is between the croissant and brunch place and the Museu de Arte Antiga.
A few weeks after arriving, the Jacarandas began to bloom, lining most of Lisbon’s cobbled sidewalks and streets with the ubiquitous purple flowers. I’d walk down Rua Barata Salguiero (where the mebassy is located) and I would marvel at the green and purple trees—what a sight! From there, I’d turn right on Avenida da Liberdade, Lisbon’s main tree-lined thoroughfare, and after 100 steps heading south, I found myself at the Praça Dom Pedro IV, more commonly known as Praça do Rossio. The praça’s cobbled floor (praça is pronounced as “pra-za,” which means “square,” as in the “plaza” in Spanish) was lined with fallen jacaranda flowers. The entire square was encased in purple Jacaranda trees. It was gorgeous.
On a clear spring day, the purple trees juxtaposed against the blue Lisbon skies and the centuries-old refreshed building are as Instagramable as it ever gets! Many a photo on Facebook and Instagram have been shared by tourists who are amazed at this sight.
The author (second from left) before the Ambassador’s residence in Lisbon, just before the lunch she hosted for the officials of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in charge of the Philippines. Notice the bougainvillea draped over the gate. This gate with the bougainvillea canopy has been featured in Instagram reels on Lisbon houses.
Then there were the pink and red bougainvillea trees (they were so old that the bushes became trees) in almost every neighborhood in Lisbon, including in the Lapa area where I lived. Over the years, I draped the hanging bougainvillea branches all around the top portion of the green gate at my residence to create a thick and beautiful canopy of pink leaves, so that as I entered and left my residence, I would be enveloped in overflowing branches of pink!
The cobbled sidewalks and streets of Lisbon always amazed me, as I never saw any one slip or trip or fall while walking in high heels. They all must have guardian angels holding them up, because I was sure those leather-soled shoes did not have enough grip to hold those three-inch heels!
The author with Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle during the 2023 World Youth Day held in Lisbon. The photo was taken just before the Santo Antonio Church was opened to the public that day. The Santo Antonio Church was built on the house where Santo Antonio de Lisboa was born, just in front of the Lisbon Cathedral. This patron saint of Lisbon is also known as Santo Antonio de Padua. Lisbon’s fiesta called ‘Festas dos Santos Populares’ is celebrated in the first two weeks of June in honor of Saint Peter, Saint John, and Santo Antonio. The famous street parade of dances is held along Avenida Liberdade on the eve of 13 June, the feast of Santo Antonio of Lisbon.
The cobbled sidewalks and streets of Lisbon always amazed me, as I never saw any one slip or trip or fall while walking in high heels
Lisbon is a walking city. Every place is walkable. The Embassy, the supermarket, the Church, the pharmacy, the hospital, the market, the shopping areas, Chinatown, Alfama, the Cathedral, Baixa Chiado, even the Docas de Alcantara by the River Tagus (Rio Tejo), with that spectacular view of the 25 de Abril Bridge and the Cristo Rey, were all a good 40 minutes in all directions from where I lived in Lapa. Walking one hour and 30 minutes would take me to the Torre de Belem and around to the Jeronimos Monastery. If I got tired from walking, I called an Uber.
When I got hungry, there were literally hundreds of restaurants scattered within a 2-km radius from any point. My favorite place was the Mercado de Campo de Ourique, a much smaller and less commercial version of the Time Out Mercado da Ribeira (where every Portuguese chef with a Michelin-star restaurant has his or her version of gourmet fast food). I prefer the Mercado de Campo de Ourique, as the food choices are simple and straightforward. My favorite food stall was the Atalho do Mercado, where you could get your choice of grilled porco preto (aka pata negra or black pork), lamb chops, entrecote, or picanha (Portuguese for “a tender sirloin cut”) with a side of green salad or coleslaw, and a choice of bolo de caco (a Madeira flatbread which to me was like a version of a sweet English muffin), or what every Filipino craves after three days away from Manila, white rice. The meats were deliciously seasoned with salt, and were tender, juicy, and fresh.
Down the street from where I lived, a good 55 steps from my bougainvillea-lined gate, one could buy the most delicious butter croissant, and on weekends, have the freshest brunch menu for less than 12 euros, with freshly squeezed orange juice and a large cup of coffee. Sitting outside on a clear sunny Sunday morning at the café’s veranda, one could hear a cacophony of conversations in French, English, and Portuguese. Even the servers where all multilingual.
Less than 50 steps down from the croissant joint is the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (Museum of Ancient Art), and the adjoining bench-lined Jardim 9 de Abril (April 9 garden) that has an unobstructed view of the 25 April bridge and the nearby gigantic Cristo Rey monument nestled atop a hill across the neighboring city of Almada, across the Rio Tejo. From the same viewpoint, you could see dozens of container vans neatly piled one on top of the other, attesting to the bustling trade that enters and exits Lisbon from and to the world. Along the same riverside, dozens of people do their daily runs and walks by themselves or with friends or families along the Lisbon river front. Their rhythms were only broken by the trains that regularly ply the Cais de Sodre–Cascais route along the river front.
Everything works in sync in this lovely city by the Tejo. The Lisboetas know that they are among the luckiest people on earth to live and work in this lovely place. Okay, so sometimes the sun does not shine and some days can be overcast and wet. But 300 days in a year, the sun shines in Lisbon.
There are no traffic jams the magnitude of Edsa at rush hour, and the streets and roads are either tree-lined or overlooking patches of gardens filled with green trees.
The author donning a ‘piña’ top by fav designer Dennis Lustico, skirt by Carolina Herrera, and with one of her six Zarah Juan bags.
Being Ambassador was a lifelong dream come true for me, and being Ambassador in Lisbon—well, that was the cherry on top. Even going to the Foreign Ministry in Lisbon was always a pleasure. This centuries-old building was a palace turned convent turned government office. It survived unscathed the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The ornate hallways and staircases of the Ministry (known as the Palacio das Necessidades) were lined with the most beautiful life-sized blue and white azulejos (tiles) which depicted religious and secular scenes. Meetings here with the head of the division which handled the Philippines were always enjoyable, as I would imagine events that happened in those very rooms four centuries before. Who would have ever thought that I would be discussing the future of Philippine–Portuguese relations four centuries hence?
Being Ambassador was a lifelong dream come true for me, and being Ambassador in Lisbon—well, that was the cherry on top
The author with Portuguese Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho taken 10 June 2023, during Portuguese National Day held in Peso da Regua
The diplomatic corps based in Lisbon are a rather lucky bunch. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa decided that the national day of Portugal, which is on 10 June and is known as the “Día do Portugal, Camões e das Comunidades Portuguesas,” would always be celebrated in a different Portuguese city every year. As such, I have officially visited Porto, Ponta Delgada in the Açores, Portalegre, Braga, and a city off the Douro River called Peso da Regua. I remember telling the President what a great way it was for the diplomatic corps to see the country. And in those events, I always made sure I wore or had with me something uniquely Filipino, and my plan worked. Soon as I got to the venue, the protocol officials would recognize me and tell the rest that “the Philippine Ambassador is here!”
We did a lot to promote the Philippines in Portugal. However, unlike in next-door Spain, the Philippines does not share a familiar spot in Portuguese history. Which is why our activities in Lisbon were all centered around raising awareness of the Philippines. This we did by sharing our narratives, and from there, finding common points in our histories where both our narratives converged. Interestingly enough, the Portuguese were in Asia 23 years before that Spanish expedition, headed by Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhaes (Ferdinand Magellan), arrived in Guiuan, Eastern Samar on 16 March 1521. In fact, as early as 1498, the Portuguese arrived in Goa (India), and by 1511, had settled in Malacca, part of present-day Malaysia. They worked their way up to China and Japan, but somehow did not venture further east to reach our islands.
So we came up with what we call our legacy projects. With our friends who are Asian history experts at the Center for Humanities (CHAM) of the University Nova de Lisboa, we came up with several publications and research materials (ready for printing) which include: 1) the first ever annotated Bibliography of the Philippines found in Portuguese Archives and Libraries, 16th-18th centuries; 2) Philippines in Portuguese Historiography; 3) the first Portuguese pocket book translation of Dr. Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere (which was published by Penguin Random House Portugal, and forms part of their Classic Books collection); 4) a book on the Collection of Essays on Early Modern Philippine History, 16th–18th Centuries ; 5) a manuscript ready for printing entitled Iberian Accounts of the Philippines in the Early Modern Period; 6) and a publication of a peer-reviewed book entitled The Philippines, a Global Contact Zone in Early Modern Era, based on the papers delivered during the 2019 conference on the Philippines held in Lisbon and organized by CHAM.
Of course, in between we had conferences about Magellan in Philippine history; after all, he was that famous Portuguese navigator who sailed for Spain. In my opinion, the Magellan expedition was the first ever start-up, because when the Portuguese king turned down his pitch for sailing westward to reach the east, he turned to another “investor,” the Spanish king, who bought his idea! For this conference, which I entitled Magalhaes, Magallanes, Magellan, we invited prominent Philippine historians such as Prof. Danny Gerona (the only Filipino historian to write a book about Magellan), Dr. Rene Escalante (then chairman of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines), Prof. Felice Noelle Rodriguez of the Ateneo de Zamboanga, Prof. Chas Navarro of the Ateneo de Manila, and of course my dear friend Prof. Ambeth Ocampo, to tell our narratives about Magellan in our history. It was a success.
For the conference Magalhaes, Magallanes, Magellan, we invited prominent Philippine historians, including my dear friend Prof. Ambeth Ocampo, to tell our narratives about Magellan in our history
In between the years, we also organized countless lectures and print interviews on Philippine history; organized the first ever Philippines retrospective film festival at the Cinemateca Portuguesa, just as the Philippines was commemorating 100 years of Philippine Cinema in 2019; and organized three piano concerts by Raul Sunico in various Portuguese cities, as well as invited Madrid-based Filipinos, such as pianist Lawrence Aliganga and soprano Manila Adap, to perform in Portugal. We also had the Pundaquit Virtuosi, the 28-member youth string orchestra (violin) from Zambales, charm hundreds of Portuguese audiences in three different cities, plus many others. But to do all these, we needed funds, and I will be forever grateful to Senators Loren Legarda and Franklin Drilon for believing in our mission to raise awareness about the Philippines in Portugal. Without their congressional insertions, we would not have been able to do many of the above-mentioned activities.
The author during her last Philippine National Day celebration as Ambassador to Portugal held in June 2023. With her is Ambassador Jorge Silva Lopes, Chief of State Protocol of the Portuguese Republic. Note the ever-present Zarah Juan bags in official functions, a hit in Lisbon, which had guests saying, ‘The Philippine Ambassador is here!’
So you may be wondering if I miss Lisbon.
Of course I do! I would be lying if I said I didn’t. Which is why my stint in Lisbon, all six years and five months of it, will forever be among the highlights of my career.
Actually, of my life.
