By Ali Macabalang
COTABATO CITY – Philippine Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Saudi Arabia Adnan V. Alonto has assumed the Philippine embassy’s top post in the Republic of Yemen on concurrent capacity.
Ambassador Adnan Alonto
(DFA / MANILA BULLETIN)
Alonto said he officially presented his credentials to Yemen President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi at the latter’s office last Sunday, a work day in the Muslim republic.
“The Yemen assignment is in addition to my Saudi duties,” said Alonto.
Alonto is one of the sons of the late Lanao’s legendary former Senator Domocao Alonto, who was credited for heralding abroad the existence and aspirations of minority Muslims in the Philippines in the early 1960s.
He earned his AB Political Science degree at the Mindanao State University-Marawi City main campus in 1981 and graduated from the San Beda College of Law in 1985. After practicing law for almost a decade, he and his family moved to the United States in 1995. During the 2016 presidential elections, Alonto served as the overall North America Coordinator of the Brotherhood for Duterte-USA.
President Duterte named him Philippine ambassador to Saudi Arabia in November 2017.
Last January, Alonto assumed the chairmanship of the ASEAN Riyadh Committee (ARC), a 19-year old diplomatic body sustaining an enhanced link among member-envoys especially on political, economic and cultural dimensions.
He succeeded ARC Chairman Koko Lait, the incumbent ambassador of Myanmar to the KSA.
In his presentation of credentials to Yemen President Hadi, the Maranao envoy was accompanied by his wife, Jo Castro-Alonto, Consul General Christopher Aro, and Vice Consul Alexander Estomo.
Alonto said he was hopeful that everything would be “all well” in his additional assignment in Yemen.
Yemen became an independent republican state in 1990 after communist South Yemen merged with North Yemen to end years of strife.