May 5, 2004
U.S. Embassy names ballroom after Parsons
Brothers (l-r:) Jose, Patrick, and Peter Parsons pose
before the portrait of their father, Charles “Chick” Parsons,
Jr., in whose honor the ballroom of the United States Embassy in Manila
was named during a ceremony on April 29, 2004. U.S. Embassy Chargé
d’Affaires Joseph Mussomeli, who led the ceremony, noted that
Chick Parsons first came to Manila when he was five, returned with his
family to the U.S. at the outbreak of WWII, but volunteered to return
to the Philippines on numerous secret submarine missions. Parson’s
extensive knowledge of the Philippines and his network of local contacts
enabled him to communicate effectively with guerrilla units. After the
war, he resumed his business activities and lived in the Philippines
for the remainder of his life.
 |
Chargé d’Affaires Joseph Mussomeli leads the April
29 ceremony honoring four Americans “who were not as well
known as General McArthur, but who are nonetheless deserving
recognition.” Honored in the ceremony held in the U.S.
Embassy ballroom were Charles Parsons and Clair Phillips, who
worked on secret missions to help U.S. and Philippine forces
defeat the Japanese army in WWII; the Dr. Najeeb Saleeby, who
served as army surgeon and educator in Mindanao in the 1900s;
and Francis Murphy, who was the first U.S. High Commissioner
to the Philippines. In honoring the four, the Chargé
said, “we pay tribute to our shared history and the bonds
of friendship that unite us.”
|
Related link:
Chargé Mussomeli’s remarks
at the April 29 ballroom ceremony
(l-r:) U.S. Embassy Vice Consul Rois Beal, painter Rafael
del Casal, and U.S. Embassy Assistant Information Officer Ruth Urry
pose beneath the portrait of James Murphy, who was Governor-General
of the Philippines in 1933-1934 and the first U.S. High Commissioner
to the Philippines (1934-1936). In his remarks, Chargé Mussomeli
noted that in 1940, President Roosevelt appointed Murphy to the Supreme
Court “where he became a staunch advocate of civil liberties and
is remembered for his scathing dissent in the court case that sanctioned
the internment of Japanese-Americans.”
Ms. Leslie Murray (left), project consultant of the American Chamber
of Commerce of the Philippines (AMCHAM) and second vice president of
the Filipino-American Memorial Endowment (FAME), talk beside the portrait
of Claire Phillips, after whom the Embassy’s chancery conference
room was named during the April 29 ceremony. Phillips gathered information
from Japanese military officers patronizing her club in Manila, which
she secretly passed to the Allied forces during WWII. She was arrested
and tortured, but survived the war and wrote a book about her wartime
experience.
###
