MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) paid tribute to former Foreign Secretary Roberto Romulo, who passed away on Sunday, calling him “a visionary diplomat … who had Philippine interests at heart while serving the country as ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union Institutions, and later as secretary of foreign affairs.” The agency regarded Romulo as the DFA’s father of institutional economic diplomacy. Romulo also commissioned the United Nations Development Programme to publish six volumes of the economic diplomacy handbook, which is still used to this day. “With these and numerous other accomplishments, he will be fondly recalled by the women and men of the Department of Foreign Affairs as a statesman that upheld the ideals of excellence in the conduct of diplomacy,” the DFA said. —TINA G. SANTOS