The Philippine ambassador to Brazil has been recalled after a video was released that showed her assaulting her domestic worker.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. announced in a tweet that Ambassador Marichu Mauro had been recalled “effective immediately to explain the maltreatment of her service staff.”
@DFAPHL @ANCALERTS @gmanews @cnnphilippines @BusinessMirror The Philippine Ambassador to Brazil has been recalled effective immediately to explain the maltreatment of her service staff.
— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) October 26, 2020
Brazilian media company GloboNews broadcast a damning report yesterday titled “Videos show Philippine ambassador to Brazil assaulting maid.” Several CCTV clips show Mauro hurting a domestic worker on at least four occasions. It’s unclear how many workers were assaulted by the diplomat, who either struck or grabbed the staff by the hair. The footage appeared to have been recorded in March, August, and October of this year.
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Mauro started working in Brazil in 2018 and has jurisdiction over Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. According to the embassy’s website, she first joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1995 and worked at the Economic Diplomacy Unit until 1996, the year she was appointed as acting director at the Office of the Middle East and African Affairs.
She was assigned in 2006 as first secretary and consul at the Philippine embassy in Belgium and Luxembourg and Philippine Mission to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, and became career minister and consul general. She led the Philippine delegation at the European Union and became the Executive Director of the Office of European Affairs in 2012.
In 2014, she was appointed consul general in the Philippine consulate in Milan, Italy. Through her efforts, the Philippine government was able to purchase a property in 2017 that became the permanent site of the Philippine consulate in Milan.
