Cayetano justifies bloggers in official entourage in US

Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano on Thursday said he would recommend to other government officials the inclusion of bloggers in their official delegations in overseas business trips.

Cayetano, who returned on Sunday from a monthlong visit to the United States, defended the inclusion of two controversial pro-Duterte bloggers in the government delegation to the UN General Assembly in New York and in his official visit to Washington DC.

“The bigger question is why weren’t you guys with me?” Cayetano shot back when asked why he included bloggers Mocha Uson, a presidential communications assistant secretary, and Rey Joseph Nieto.

“It was a major policy speech (in the United Nations). Without the bloggers, how will we be covered? The world has been maligning us and our coverage is not enough,” he said on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations forum on Thursday.

Cayetano said he had not checked whether the Department of Foreign Affairs  had already terminated Nieto’s contract as consultant for “strategic communications for migrant workers affairs.”—DONA Z. PAZZIBUGAN