Marcos: Asean summit in May to focus on oil, food, migrants

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday said the 48th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit and Related Summits from May 8 to 9 will push through but will focus only on bare-bone topics: oil, food prices, and migrant workers.

This development came after all Asean member states agreed to focus on these topics, as countries continue to feel the brunt of rising fuel prices triggered by the conflict in the Middle East.

“The consensus that we came to is that it is precisely now that we must coordinate our efforts. So, that is what we are going to do. We will proceed with the Asean Summit, but this will be… the way that we described it, is a bare-bones Asean Summit,” he said in a media interview in Silang, Cavite.

“We will be talking about three main subjects: The supply of petroleum and petroleum products; the supply of food, and the price of food; and migrant workers. Those will be the three subject matters that we will be taking up in the Asean Summit. It will be over a period of maybe a day and a half instead of the multiple days that we had planned,” he also said.

The 49th Asean Summit and Related Summits in November, meanwhile, will “tentatively” proceed as scheduled.

READ: Leviste to Marcos: Cut Asean budget, funnel savings to fuel price relief

“So, for now, tentatively, the one in November should push through because it’s important as other world leaders will be coming here—from Europe, from China, from Korea, from Japan. We really need to deal with certain issues with their leaders. So, it’s going to be very important,” Marcos explained.

He also said, “But before we do that, maybe by September, October, we will ask what these leaders would want to do once they arrive, et cetera.”

According to Marcos, Batangas Rep. Leandro Legarda Leviste’s call for the Office of the President to review and eventually reduce its P22.9-billion budget for this year’s Asean summit was one of the reasons for this decision.

The lawmaker filed House Bill 911, which seeks to reduce projected expenses and reallocate funds to measures to ease the impact of fuel price hikes.

“We’ve done it. That’s over. That’s why we did this. That’s exactly why we did—one of the big reasons why we did this,” he said.

It was in 2017 when the Philippines last hosted the Asean Summits and related meetings, where the government allocated P16.747 billion, of which only 51 percent or P8.572 billion was disbursed.

Online meetings for Asean

In a press release, Executive Secretary Ralph Recto said 650 preparatory meetings will be conducted virtually. 

As chair of the Asean National Organizing Committee, Recto said he issued a memorandum on March 27 to Philippine host agencies, informing all their counterparts that all preparatory meetings—from Working Group and Senior Officials to Ministerial—will be held online.

He also directed the Department of Foreign Affairs to “hold diplomatic briefings to incorporate appropriate messaging and other changes with the substantive deliverables.”

“But a stripped-down Asean activities will still be able to achieve its goal of strengthening regional unity and forging a common response to mounting global challenges,” Recto said./das /cb /jpv