10 April 2014 – Philippine Ambassador to Thailand Jocelyn Batoon-Garcia inducted into office the new set of officers and Board Members of the Association of Filipinos in Thailand (AFT) on April 1.  AFT is the oldest Filipino association in the Kingdom of Thailand.  Working under a program that calls for “New Directions” for the Association, new AFT President Mr. Amando Eufemio said, “The Association’s new directions are not about rewriting its history of doing charitable works for the Philippines, but redefining that story of charity from being Philippine-oriented into being Filipino oriented and extending that goodwill to the Thai people who have generously aided the Philippines in so many ways and in so many times.”

Ambassador Batoon-Garcia congratulated AFT’s new set of officers and challenged them to play a more active in fostering closer people-to-people relations between the Philippines and Thailand. She added that the success of the political-security and economic community pillars of the ASEAN Community in 2015 is underpinned to a large degree by the level of social and cultural understanding between and among the peoples of ASEAN. END