President Marcos: PH to host ASEAN Summit in May in 'barebones,' scaled-down format

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the Philippines will proceed with hosting the ASEAN Summit on May 7 and 8. However, due to the ongoing Middle East crisis and its impact on oil supplies, the gathering will follow a scaled-down, "barebones" format.

Following consultations with the other member states, it was agreed that the summit is necessary to coordinate regional responses to shared challenges.

The discussions will focus strictly on three urgent priorities:

• Petroleum and petroleum product supplies

• Food security and pricing

• The welfare of migrant workers

"We have consulted with our counterparts, the 10 other member states. The question that I asked them is very simple: Because everybody is busy with the oil crisis that is going on because of the war in the Middle East, would you like to postpone the ASEAN Summit?" he said in an interview in Cavite on Friday, March 27.

"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, ipapatuloy natin ang ASEAN Summit. Ngunit, the way that we described it is that we have a—it is a barebones ASEAN Summit. 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," Marcos said.

The duration of the summit may be shortened to approximately one and a half days to streamline preparations.

"Ang kailangan talaga sa panahon na ito ay makapag-usap kami mga leaders upang malaman natin kung ano (What we need this time is to be able to talk about) what do we do in the future, what do we do for the rest of the year, what do we do, how can we help each other, and what is the ASEAN position regarding all of these shocks that are coming our way," Marcos said.

Regarding the second summit scheduled for November, the President noted that it remains tentatively set, with a final decision to be made around September or October following further consultations with international leaders.

"Hindi natin pinag-uusapan muna yung sa November. Sa ngayon, tentatively, tuloy pa rin sa November dahil important din yun (We are not yet talking about the November summit. For now, it will take place in November tentatively because that is also important). Because the other world leaders will be coming here, galing sa Europe, China, Korea, Japan," Marcos said.

The President said the move to a simplified format specifically addresses the need to redirect resources to sectors affected by the current global crisis.

-Paraluman News