President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the upcoming ASEAN summit will be a “bare-bones” gathering that will focus on three key concerns: oil, food security, and migrant workers.
“As I said, it will be a very bare bones summit which will focus very closely on those three subject matters, oil, food, and migrant workers,” Marcos said.
The President added that the Leaders’ Summit scheduled for November is still tentatively set to push through, citing the importance of in-person discussions with visiting world leaders from Europe, China, South Korea, and Japan.
He said the summit remains crucial as regional and global leaders need to address ongoing international developments and shared challenges.
Marcos noted that by September or October, he would again consult with fellow leaders to determine whether the November meeting would proceed as planned.
The scaled-down hosting comes as Batangas Representative Leandro Leviste urged the government to reduce the country’s budget for hosting the ASEAN Summit and related meetings this year from P22 billion to P10 billion.
In House Resolution 911, Leviste said any savings from the ASEAN budget could be redirected to strengthen the government’s response to rising fuel prices and serve as an example of fiscal discipline across agencies.
Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, who chairs the ASEAN National Organizing Committee, said Marcos has ordered a recalibration of the Philippines’ hosting of ASEAN 2026, scaling down non-essential activities to cut costs and focus on priority issues.
Recto said at least 650 preparatory meetings will now be conducted online.
Under a memorandum issued to Philippine host agencies, all preparatory meetings, from working groups and senior officials’ meetings to ministerial sessions, will be held virtually.
He also directed the Department of Foreign Affairs to conduct diplomatic briefings to align messaging and adjust substantive deliverables in light of the revised setup.
Despite the scaled-down format, Recto said the streamlined ASEAN activities would still be able to meet their objective of strengthening regional unity and forging a coordinated response to mounting global challenges.
He added that the changes reflect the realities facing the region, stressing that ASEAN meetings cannot remain insulated from the complex adversities confronting member states.
