PRE(SUMPTIVE) DEPARTURE ORIENTATION SEMINAR Week Three

I do nothing if not exaggerate on this blog my importance to the foreign service. I predicted three weeks ago, for instance, that there'd be hell to pay the moment I went off to PDOS. In reality, my office functioned normally, officers and staff covered for me effortlessly, and Pardek's reaction upon discovering I was away at PDOS was a resounding "meh".

Fine. Roll the damn highlights. No one cares.

Week Three

Day One

Gender Sensitivity and Counseling Techniques. Well-intentioned lecture, but with enough outdated and clichéd role-playing games to fill a month's worth of Dilbert.

Day Two


Tourism Promotion. Bohol, Palawan, Davao, Siargao. So many beautiful places to see before I get posted, so many paradises the world has yet to discover.

(this corny dialogue also serves as tenuous segue for a mini post-within-post edition of "Travel Advisory...Not only in the Philippines":

• Explosion at mall (LLDDL immediately checks if VNC is ok)


• Masked gunmen shoot at police


• Attack inside government building leaves many casualties


• Terrorist suspect escapes police custody (happens at CTU all the time)


• "Chop-chop" remains found along roadside.

Good Lord. How'd I get from beach getaways to gruesome tragedies? What's happening to me?!)

Day Three

And sheee wiiiiiilllllll beeeeeee lovvvvved.......and sheeeee wiiiiiiiilllllllll be lo-huh-huh-ovvved

(I'll explain this some other time)

Day Four


Philippine Culture and Values. The speaker emphasized how kind, affectionate and compassionate Filipinos really are, and cited a study showing Pinoys – by a wide margin - say “I Love You” more than anyone in ASEAN (you can almost hear the LLDDL shouting, dapat lang, 'no!)

Day Five


Simulation Exercise, and last day of PDOS. We were given a very limited budget to work with, but still managed to put together some very nice touches, like: 1) the string quartet above (alright, alright, there were five of them, were from the Air Force, and used a Casio keyboard, but they did a killer cover of the Pinoy Big Brother theme song)...


...2) an open bar with FSO bartenders (the 2008 Welch's sparkling grape juice at the bottom left was a prized bottle from my private cellar)...


...and 3) this guy.


I played the pretend host country's foreign minister, and The Evaluators loved my toast remarks. “A toast tour-de-force”, raved Protocol. “One of the best remarks of the simulation season”, gushed the Institution. “I almost peed in my pants”, wept the guy playing the pretend media. If only I actually wrote the remarks myself.


Finally, the simulation closes, and PDOS comes to an end. Because of our bad experiences at graduation ceremonies held by the Institution, my FSO batchmates and I tense up when the names are read, assume we won't graduate, and reflexively plot our revenge. Turns out, we all passed, were awarded certificates of completion, and given the go-ahead to make ourselves available for posting.

Now, if only my office noticed.

PRE(SUMPTIVE) DEPARTURE ORIENTATION SEMINAR Week Two

Well, I can write fini to the second week of PDOS, and I don't think Pardek suspects anything yet. I have to skip lunch to get through the work that piles on my desk while I'm away at class, and I have to run across the Home Office building whenever I get urgent calls, but otherwise, its looking increasingly likely I'll pull this thing off. Fingers-crossed.

On to the highlights.

Week Two

Day One

(No classes today thanks to EDSA. Unfortunately, I pull holiday officer-on-duty watch. Fortunately, the Oscars are on, and everytime the movie's mentioned, I hum "and there wiiiiiiiillllllll beeeeeeeee bloooood....and there wiiiiiiiiillllll beeeeeeeee blo-huh-huh-hod")

Day Two

Predictably, the course has a simulation exercise. In this case, we're gonna pretend to host a National Day reception abroad. Because my Department batchmates have tons of organizing experience by now, and because most of my PDOS batchmates are well-disciplined military-types, preparations go smoothly and swiftly. Roles are farmed out right away, floor plans go up on whiteboards immediately, and - for reasons I still don't fully understand - everyone's digital picture gets taken. In case you're wondering, I'm playing the host country's Foreign Minister (naturally).

Day Three

Outbreaks and Pandemics. Sh*t. I mean...holy sh*t. We're all gonna die. Horribly. Well, no, not really, but the LLDDL and I just finished season 5 of "24" on DVD, and all the classroom talk of lesions, casualty counts and "aerosolizing" viruses left me rocking my seat, sucking my thumb, and waiting for Jack to slap me silly while shouting "WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" On the other hand, we were also lectured on a Bird-flu tracking experiment called "The Minnesota Trojan Chicken Study" which, I'm sure Dave Barry would agree, would make a great name for a rock band.

Day Four

Assistance to Nationals, the bread and butter of the foreign service. Our unified coordination of services across many government agencies is called "The One Country Team Approach", which could only be more kick-ass sounding if it were called "The United Forces of Diplomacy". Whenever we're lectured on this, I always get images running through my head of an Ambassador rallying his staff, like a coach at halftime. "C'mon Country Team! Kayang-kaya kung sama sama! There is no 'I' in 'DFA'! "

Day Five

Service Sector Success Stories. We discuss, among others, the booming BPO industry (hell yeah), the booming spa and wellness industry (testify, LLDDL, testify!), and the booming animation industry (Cooooo-braaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Man, just saying that's got me pumped for the last week of PDOS!

Peeeeeeeeeee-dossssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!

PRE(SUMPTIVE) DEPARTURE ORIENTATION SEMINAR Week One

I'm gonna get in trouble for this, I just know it.

All government personnel (FSOs, service attachés, staff) scheduled for deployment abroad are required to go through PDOS - the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar. It's supposed to give you a broad idea what life will be like at post, brief you on hot topics and issues, and generally provide you with tips on how to stay out of trouble and avoid being recalled. Cadetship Lite, if you will.

All well and good, except: a) The Boss (who I shall henceforth call Pardek) doesn't know I'm signed up for the current 3-week course; b) all the other officers in my unit are either on leave or away on assignment, making the wing of my office a virtual ghost town; and c) I'm not even due for posting yet!

It's not quite the pre-printing of "19-0 Perfect Season" Patriot t-shirts, but it's still a giant temptation of fate. Some crisis could flare up at my office, they'd look for me and find my empty desk, and Pardek would yell "You're not even going anywhere! WTF, man?!"

But, heck, PDOS is only irregularly offered once or twice a year. And if there's one thing Gattaca taught me, it's that if your blast-off window is closing, you gotta take chances and be ready to throw Jude Law in an incinerator.

So PDOSing I go.

Week One

Day One

Getting to know you. As you can see from the proliferation of buzz-cuts, most of my PDOS batchmates are from the armed services. There's no one from the Trade and Industry Department this time, which is sad because I was hoping to start a geeky FSO vs. Foreign Trade Service Corps rivalry. Alas. (Needless to state, I don't start a rivalry with the future military attachés, because they will freakin' end me)

Day Two


Entitlements, benefits and allowances, oh my! Everyone's favorite lecture. The funniest part was that one of my PDOS batchmates actually brought his spouse - or maybe she brought herself - specifically to this lecture. No paycheck's getting past her!

Day Three

Human Resources' go-to move: The Out-of-Office Team Building Exercise. It actually turned out more fun than expected, and the Parks and Wildlife venue brought back memories of grade school field trips. Above, we see the standard opening team cheer event. My team - the Black Panthers - basically just rhymed "Winner" with "Gggrrrrrr". Yes, it was as lame as it sounds.


Best part of the day: An Amazing Race* type of..um..race. Various legs involved: a) answering tough questions on Philippine history; b) solving complex brain teasers; and c) using your mouth and raising your butt in the air (don't ask why I was a little too good at this task).

And then, there was this.



Last activity of the day: everyone breaks up into groups of two, independently makes a random body part, and then creates the world's ugliest composite whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is.

Finally, your future foreign service personnel let loose to the tune of Pinoy Big Brother (warning: contains disturbing images)

(*speaking of Amazing Race, a few words on the just concluded Asian edition: Son of Rovil, you bald-headed shmuck!!! Flags? You couldn't get past freakin' flags!?! If you spent more time just looking at your passport's stamps and the flagpoles at the airports, and less time stripping, flirting and basically making pa-cute throughout the race, Philippine GNP would be up another $100,000 by now! No wonder you've never endorsed anything other than Mexicali fastfood! Do you even know what Mexicali is?! Are you still looking for a Republic of Mexicali flag? Shmuck.)

Day Four

Protocol and Social Graces, where they beseech us to always keep our elbows off the dining table (ok), to trim our nose hair regularly (ok), and to never wear a red sando underneath a white barong (I make no promises).

Day Five


Love the segue. From Good Grooming and Office Decorum we go directly to...Political and Security Issues. Why the hell not? In the afternoon, there's a Powerpoint presentation on Personal Security and we're given tips like "avoid taking the same route to work" and "look inside your car before going in". The whole thing sounded like a James Bond script...

...Oh. Well, there you go.

Alrighty then. First week's over and done with, the sessions have been relatively interesting, and no one has discovered Jude Law's charred corpse yet.

So far, so good.