Ailing Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady, who suffered a stroke last month, may come home to the Philippines next week, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said Tuesday.
 

"She has been recovering well. I heard that if her progress continues, there are plans to fly her home latter part of next week,” Del Rosario told reporters.

Brady, 71, had a stroke when she was brought to a hospital after fainting in her residence in Beijing last month.

She just recovered from a mild stroke when she was asked to take over the post that was left vacant for sometime after a candidate, businessman Domingo Lee, failed to get the approval of the bicameral Commission on Appointments. 
 

Brady’s appointment as ambassador to China was her second. She first served there from 2006 to 2010 under former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Brady’s deputy, Alex Chua, temporarily oversees the operation of the embassy as charge d’affaires in the absence of an ambassador.

President Benigno S. Aquino III had said two career diplomats are in the final shortlist of candidates for Brady’s replacement and that he will announce his choice very soon.

Brady, a retired career diplomat, was appointed as envoy to China in May this year at the height of territorial disputes between Manila and Beijing.

A standoff erupted between the Philippines and China in April when Manila sent a warship to arrest Chinese poachers at the disputed Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc, which the government said is within the Philippines’ territorial waters or 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone as provided for by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
 

Both the Philippines and China, along with 162 other states, are signatories to the treaty. — Michaela del Callar/RSJ, GMA News