Lucenario ‘embodied servant leadership’

It is with great difficulty that I am writing this tribute to Ambassador Domingo “Doy” Lucenario who died in a helicopter crash in Pakistan last May 8. How can I succinctly put into words my interaction with a man who dedicated a lifetime to serving his country? Please let me share this in the hope that his deed may be emulated and that he would be given the highest honor the country can give him. I want people to know what great service he did for the country.

When he headed the passport division of the Department of Foreign Affairs he got rid of the fixers in the premises and sped up the process. He was also the project manager when machine readable passports were about to be rolled out of the DFA.

I first met Doy during the campaign to push for the overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) Law. It was a pleasant surprise to see his openness to listen when we first told him of our intentions. The implementation of the OAV Law was additional work to the embassy staff of 60 who were serving a 150,000-strong Filipino community in Hong Kong. Yet, I saw no resistance from Doy.

His style of partnering with the community was not lip service. He really consulted and worked with us. He was always gracious, his humility embodied servant leadership. Hong Kong blazed the trail for OAV by mobilizing education teams and mobile registration teams before anyone thought of it. There was no task that was too much for him. He personally went from shop to shop in Worldwide House to draw participation among the Filipino business community in Hong Kong. He visited almost all community gatherings to encourage people to be involved. He was able to unite the different and sometimes antagonistic groups in the community and made everyone feel that OAV was theirs.

Our helper Manang Erma, who fondly called him her “boyfriend,” told me about Doy before I met him. One afternoon, Doy left his work and went all the way to Tsing Yi to comfort Manang Erma when her marriage broke up. That was Doy’s brand of service. Personal, creative, filled with initiative, humble, unrecognized, engaged, with empathy, seasoned with a great sense of humor.

His friendship with Manang Erma led him to request me to allow Manang Erma to be one of those who would go to court against the levy in 2004. His support for the plight of our migrant workers was a big morale booster for our struggling workers that time. Manang Erma and her companions lost their case but the case created ripples that eventually led to the abolition of the burden.

The immediate days after his passing were days of sleepless nights as I dug for fond memories of Doy. I surfed the Net for more news of his passing while waiting for plans for his wake and funeral. It was a time of reaching out to friends who knew Doy and saw his greatness. By reaching out to each other, we hoped to dull the pain of his passing.

Instead of focusing on the pain, we can try honoring Doy by emulating his standard in serving the community.

May we have God’s peace during this time.

Paalam, Ambassador Doy.

—DAPHNE CENIZA-KUOK,

Hong Kong,

cenizadk@yahoo.com