There is also a young Asian - in particular a Filipino - among the 23 new halberdiers of the Pontifical Swiss Guard who took the solemn oath of office on Saturday afternoon in the Courtyard of San Damaso, in the Vatican. Not only young people from the cantons in the Alps of the Swiss Confederation, therefore, but also their contemporary, naturalized, from a much more distant origin.
Sebastian Esai Eco Eviota - this is his name -, 25 years old, arrived from the capital Bern, is the first 'thoroughbred' Filipino in the smallest and oldest army in the world. And like his 22 other comrades he swore - in German -, as happens every year on the anniversary of the Sack of Rome (May 6, 1527), in which 147 Swiss Guards gave their lives in defense of Pope Clement VII fighting against the lansquenets enlisted in the army of Charles V.
Hers, by the way, is a particular story, which saw the premature loss of her mother, the absence of her father, a fragmented childhood spent through Mindanao and other continents. And finally the arrival at the Vatican to be one of the guards who defend the Pope and his residence. At the beginning of last year, Eviota found her vocation in the Swiss Guards. He was warmly welcomed as a recruit in a letter from Commander Christoph Graf in January 2022. Previously, Sebastian served as a second lieutenant in the Swiss Army, 13th Infantry Battalion, in a two-year basic course. And media have talked about him both in Europe and in his country of origin.
Nicknamed "Baste", he is the son of Diomedes 'Brady' Eviota, a former journalist from Surigao City who emigrated to Switzerland in 2006, and the late Editha Eco, also a journalist for Esperanza, Agusan del Sur. He was born in August 1998 in Davao City and moved to Switzerland at the age of 9 with his older sister Sophia, then 13/years old, on a visa for family reunification. Sebastian's mother died when he was two years old.
Her devoted maternal grandparents, Catholics, attended Mass almost every day in their parish church, a hundred yards from home. Their lifestyle has certainly left a deep impression on the growing Sebastian. The same maternal grandparents supported the young family after the loss of their mother. When their father Brady left for Switzerland, the children went to live with their paternal grandparents, Diomedes Sr., the late judge of the regional court of the city of Surigao. It was thanks to the intervention of his grandfather that the seed of 'Baste' career was planted and nurtured.
Since then, the Eviota family has settled in the Bumpliz district of the Swiss capital of Bern, together with their beloved stepmother Maria Theresa Angob. Baste joined the European group Youth for Christ (YFC) in Bern and was actively involved as a board member of the English-speaking Roman Catholic community of Bruder Klaus Church, also in Bern. The young Eviota completed his apprenticeship as a hotel specialist in Bern and last time worked as a customer service supervisor at the Migros supermarket chain. His sister Sophia is making a career as a sous-chef in the same corporate organization.
His Swiss citizenship, Catholic faith, young age, height, professional diploma and being an unmarried male made him eligible for the Swiss Guards. His basic two-year experience in the Swiss army, also a prerequisite, prepared him for further training, including personality protection, crowd control, the use of modern weapons, counter-terrorism techniques and the Italian language.
Finally, on Saturday, the oath, together with his classmates in the Vatican. Two years before Eviota, the Swiss-Filipino Vincent Lüthi had made headlines when he also joined the Swiss Guards: his father is from the Swiss canton of Vaud while his mother is from Cebu, in the Philippines. But before that there was the case of Dhani Bachmann, who was sworn in on May 6, 2002, as the first black Swiss guard. In 2004, however, Dhani left the Papal Corps to devote himself to something else, and in Rome he went to work in a private security agency.