A diplomat's farewell

Iris Gonzales

- IRIS GONZALES

One afternoon late last year, just before the holiday hustle and bustle, I sat in the drawing room of the US Ambassador’s Residence in Makati waiting for Ambassador MaryKay Carlson.

I was invited for a one-on-one off-the-record meeting with the US envoy, a rare opportunity to talk about anything under the sun, including the latest happenings in the country and the economy at the time - the good, the bad and the ugly.

At that moment, at least in my imaginings, I felt like I was inside the Netflix political thriller “The Diplomat,” a nail-biting series about a seasoned female diplomat navigating political and moral tensions while serving as the US ambassador to the UK.

I told Ambassador MaryKay that and we had a good laugh. She was familiar with the series but it turns out we were both bigger fans of “Slow Horses,” the British spy thriller television series about a dysfunctional team of M15 agents and their famously obnoxious chain-smoking arid shower-averse boss Jackson Lamb, played by the genius Gary Oldman.

So I told her, “Ah yes, that worked, too.” After all, our discussions during that one-on-one meeting felt straight out of a scene from Slow Horses, to which she jested, “Well, I hope you found my personal hygiene to be a bit better than Jackson Lamb’s!”

In reality, Ambassador MaryKay is no doubt a seasoned diplomat, not unlike those portrayed in movies and on television.

But, as she narrated in her farewell speech last Jan. 16 ~as her three-and-a-half-year posting in the Philippines came to an end ~ preparing for her assignment here took more than experience and diplomatic skills.