Victor is a Filipino lawyer and junior foreign service officer. He is currently fulfilling his first home office tour of duty in Manila. Prior to joining the foreign service in 2022, he had spent more than two years in France pursuing two Master of Laws degrees at the Université Paris 2 – Panthéon Assas (LL.M. in European Law and LL.M. in International Arbitration & Disputes Settlement), in both cases graduating with high honors (mention bien). Before pursuing his graduate studies, he worked as an associate in a Manila-based law firm, as a management assistant with the government’s communications office, as an investigator with the government’s corporate and securities regulator and as a legislative officer for the youth party-list in the House of Representatives.
Victor obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) and his Bachelor of Arts in Film and Audio-Visual Communication (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman.
As a college student, Victor was active in student councils, unions, and civic organizations. He was President of the National Union of Students of the Philippines, and of the Law Student Council of UST. He was also elected Speaker of the UST Central Student Council. He served as Councilor to the University Student Council of UP Diliman, where he was a partisan of a student political party and a member of various student formations and a fraternity. Beyond the classroom, Victor was an activist and was involved in different organizations pursuing various causes and campaigns.
Whenever there is an opportunity, Victor loves to travel. Aside from trips with his family, he is a backpacker and loves embarking on multi-week journeys, often on his own. He has been to most provinces of the Philippines and hopes to set foot in all the rest in a few years. He has traveled a month crisscrossing the north of India, from the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi to the deserts of Rajasthan. On separate occasions, he has spent weeks backpacking Sri Lanka, Taiwan and most countries of Southeast Asia. His studies in France has allowed him to travel its various regions and a few opportunities to visit other countries in Europe.
One day he hopes to be able to undertake continental journeys across South America and Africa, ala-Che Guevara.
Today, he still fancies the dream of pursuing his passion for travel and going on a voyage around the world to capture photographs, write stories, and make documentaries. He figures that being in the foreign service is an amazing compromise.
According to the Myers-Briggs personality test, Victor is an INFJ (often labeled as the “Advocate”). He is often described by friends and colleagues as idealistic and creative, reserved and soft-spoken but expressive and passionate, sensitive to how people feel, always interested in helping others and making the world a better place, sometimes to a fault.
Victor speaks Tagalog, English, and French. He enjoys street photography and is a certified open water scuba diver. He used to play the violin.
Last updated: 09 July 2023