Ambassador-designate Jana Šedivá presented the Letters of Credence to the President of the Republic of the Philippines, H.E. Rodrigo Roa Duterte, in a ceremony at the Malacañan Palace on January 15, thus becoming Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic to the Philippines.
Ambassador Jana Šedivá conveyed sincere greetings of the President of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman to President Rodrigo Duterte and the people of the Philippines and assured President Duterte that during her tenure of office, she will exert all efforts to expand mutually-beneficial cooperation between the Czech Republic and the Philippines.
Ambassador Jana Šedivá mentioned that bilateral relations between the Czech Republic and the Philippines were always very friendly and gradually deepening in recent years. Czech and Filipino spiritual and political linkages are going far back in history, to the times of the first Jesuits and scientific expeditions to the Philippines and to the friendship of national hero of the Philippines, Dr. Jose Rizal, with a Czech citizen, Prof. Ferdinand Blumentritt, whom Rizal visited in the Czech lands in 1887 and to whom he also addressed his last letter.
Czech and Filipino people also share their love for the Infant Jesus of Prague. A growing number of Filipino tourists are arriving every year to the Czech Republic to see the Child Jesus and countless beautiful historical places.
The Czech Republic, then Czechoslovakia, was the country whose citizens shed their blood during the defense of the Philippines in the Second World War alongside with other Filipino brothers in arms in the battle of Bataan.
President Duterte also invited Her Excellency Jana Šedivá for a tête-à-tête, accompanied by Secretary of Foreign Affairs H.E. Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., Secretary of Trade and Industry H.E. Ramon Lopez and Secretary of Finance H.E. Carlos Dominguez.
Ambassador Jana Šedivá studied Sinology at Charles University in Prague and Beijing University. She is a career diplomat who worked as Deputy Director of the Department of Asia and the Pacific at the Czech Foreign Ministry until last December. During her two decades long diplomatic carrier she served at Czech embassies in Jakarta and the Hague, Czech Centre in the Hague as well as EU´s Judicial Cooperation Unit-Eurojust.
