MANILA – Asif Anwar Ahmad, the newly appointed United Kingdom Ambassador to the Philippines, astonished Malacañang Palace staff and guests when he conversed with them in Tagalog during the ceremony to present his credentials to President Benigno Aquino III.
Piping up ‘pulong’ when a British Embassy staff couldn’t quickly translate the word ‘meeting,’ and answering a female diplomat’s question “Sino siya?” (Who is he?) with “Nakalimutan mo ako” (You have forgotten me) are among some of the statements he made.
Ambassador Ahmad said that he learned the complexities of the Filipino language, from grammar to pronunciation, for just five months.
In addition to his mother tongue English, Ambassador Ahmad can also speaks Bengali, Farsi, French, Kutchi, Urdu and now, Tagalog, and is making sure that he learns more of the Philippine language than just typical greetings like mabuhay (welcome), magandang araw (good day), kumusta (how are you) and salamat po (thank you). He even responds to tweets in the Filipino language.
About the relationship between the UK and the Philippines, he said: “The first railway network in the Philippines was British and today, the UK is the largest investor from the European Union here. There is even more potential for commercial links to grow. Nais kong pagtibayin ang ugnayan ng ating dalawang bansa (I want to strengthen our countries’ ties).”
