Liberato C. Bautista, the Assistant General Secretary for United Nations and International Affairs at the General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) of The United Methodist Church, was overwhelmingly elected on March 3, 2018 as president of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CoNGO) at its General Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the seventy years of CoNGO, Bautista is one of only two CoNGO Presidents who have served two terms in non-consecutive fashion. He was CoNGO President between December 2007 and January 2011. Rosalind Harris, who represented the International Social Service at the UN, was president between 1972 to 1976 and between 1991 and 1994. Bautista succeeded Cyril Ritchie who served two consecutive terms as president from January 2011 to March 2018.