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CG Jun talking to Aileen (Photo by Martin Turner)

“You can call me CG Jun for short,” the newly appointed Consul General says warmly, as he sits down for an interview with the Pangyao team in his office at the Philippine Consulate in Admiralty.

Despite having only officially assumed his position on 28th April this year, CG Jun’s enthusiasm and passion for serving the Filipino community in Hong Kong are immediately evident. He has already attended several community functions, including the 127th Philippine Independence Day and OWWA Migrants’ Day events in June, and the overseeing of the very first online Overseas Absentee Voting in May. He has also shown up to offer support and guidance for various trade shows, cultural showcases, and Pinoy film screenings.

CG Jun’s dedication to serving his fellowman started with a calling that led him to Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Pre-Divinity (Philosophy) and a Master of Arts in Theology, majoring in Pastoral Ministry. “I was on the path to priesthood, but the calling was for me to serve my kababayans (fellow Filipinos) in a different way,” CG Jun reminisces. He has now been a public servant for 25 years, during most of which he has been serving Filipinos working and living abroad.

Looking back on CG Jun’s two-and-a-half decades of foreign service, he first served at the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs from the turn of the millennium, handling the Middle East and Africa Desk. He was then assigned as Officer in Charge of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Regional Office II from 2002 to 2003. 

In 2003, he was assigned to the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, where he assumed a role in the Assistance to Nationals Section, acting as assistant head to handle cases involving women. These included cases of prostitution, homosexuality, theft, maltreatment or abuse, drugs, gambling, mixed crowd (illegal assembly), and the selling and consumption of pork and alcoholic beverages. After three years of service, he was promoted to head of the Consular Section of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh. 

From 2013, after a stint at the DFA head office in Manila, CG Jun was posted as Consul at the Philippine Consulate in Chicago, taking up the role of Deputy Consul General after four months. 

“Most Filipinos working and living in the Middle East are focused on earning enough to go home. They work hard, and once they have saved up, they go home to be with their families. 

“[This is] such a contrast with most Filipinos in the US, where their aim is integration – to become US Citizens and potentially bring their families there. The culture is vastly different, and the issues that they face are not the same,” observes CG Jun.

In October 2019, CG Jun was then recalled again to head office for mandatory service, becoming Executive Director and Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Office of American Affairs. Following the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, he continued serving Filipinos in the US while stationed in the Philippines.

When travel restrictions were finally lifted in January 2022, he was sent abroad again, to serve as Consul General at the Philippine Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, where he was stationed until his Hong Kong assignment this year. 

“There are around 64,000 Filipinos in Korea, and about two-thirds [of them] are workers,” says CG Jun. “The rest have married locally and settled down in South Korea, and a small percentage are students,” he says.

From 1986 to 1997, before CG Jun’s DFA career, he volunteered for church groups involved in promoting free and honest elections, and served in church-related missions to different urban and rural poor communities.

“It doesn’t matter where Filipinos are in the world, they are always willing to help. You don’t even have to ask them; they will start a donation or charity drive on their own!” exclaims CG Jun. “I recall when I was in the US back in 2013, in the aftermath of the devastation of Typhoon Yolanda, there was an outpouring of donations from the Filipinos in the community. And being charitable is only one of the many commonalities Filipinos abroad share,” he says.

CG Jun has already been very active in the Filipino community in Hong Kong since his appointment to the role in April this year (Photos provided by the Philippine Consulate Cultural Section)

“There is the love for our country – we will always feel the yearning to go back to the Motherland, to our roots. Then there is our work ethic; I have admired how hardworking our OFWs are – even other nationalities commend Filipino workers – they sacrifice a lot for a better life for their families and loved ones. And of course, there is our faith,” CG Jun says.

“Since we have gained independence from the colonisers who introduced Catholicism in the 16th century, we have made our faith our own. With our own traditions embedded into the Filipino culture, like fiestas and the procession of the Black Nazarene, we have made our faith unique from other Christian communities, but unifying all the same,” shares CG Jun.

CG Jun moved to Hong Kong with his wife, Catherine Joy Pineda Israel, with whom he has three children. Keeping the faith through his family, his work, and his service to the country, the Filipino community in Hong Kong is looking forward to getting to know the new Consul General as he settles into his new role. 

During a brief address at the Philippine Consulate last April, CG Jun reaffirmed the Consulate’s commitment to uphold and protect the rights and welfare of Filipinos in Hong Kong, emphasising the ongoing efforts to further improve the delivery of consular and other services to the public.

CG Jun was also appointed as Regional Commander for Asia of the Order of the Knights of Rizal in February 2024. The Knights of Rizal is an order of chivalry established in 1911 to honour and uphold the ideals of José Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines. Thus, the following quote from José Rizal is quite apt in describing CG Jun’s raison d’être:

“As God has not made anything useless in this world, as all beings fulfil obligations or a role in the sublime drama of Creation, I cannot exempt from this duty, and small though it be, I too have a mission to fill, as for example: alleviating the sufferings of my fellowmen.”