Pinay Named UN Global Security and Disarmament Adviser

Congratulations are in order for my former prof, Carol Hernandez. Azteeeeegers :)

Breaking news from the Inquirer:

UNIVERSITY of the Philippines professor Carolina Hernandez has been invited to sit in the body advising the United Nations secretary general on global security and disarmament.

Hernandez, the political science professor who helped investigate the December 1989 coup and the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny, was appointed for a renewable two-year term, according to a letter sent Jan. 20 by UN Secretary General Kofi Anan.

The 64-year-old Hernandez said she has accepted the appointment.

"I am both flattered and intimidated by the appointment," she said.

Hernandez will fly to New York to formally accept the appointment and be introduced at the opening of a three-day session of the Advisory Board for Disarmament Matters this month.

As a member of the 22-person advisory board, Hernandez will advise Anan on arms limitation and disarmament and serve the board of trustees of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.

The board meets twice a year for a three-day session each in New York and Geneva.

Hernandez is joining the UN body in a private capacity, not as a government representative. It is a non-paying job, but the UN takes care of transport and hotel expenses.

Anan's letter did not say how Hernandez came to be chosen. It said the advisory board was composed of "high-level personalities with knowledge and expertise in the field of disarmament and international security, drawn from governmental and non-governmental circles around the world."

Hernandez graduated cum laude with a degree in foreign relations from the UP.

She studied political philosophy at the Duke University in North Carolina and also pursued advanced studies at the State University of New York in Buffalo.

There, she wrote a paper on civil-military relations in the Philippines and its implications for the country's political development, which found its way into the hands of martyred opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. who was then living in exile in Boston. Aquino flew to San Francisco, California, in April 1983 to meet Hernandez.

Aquino cited Hernandez's paper when he reported on the atrocities of the Marcos regime before the US congressional committee headed by Democratic Representative Stephen Solarz.