BBM gets more invitations

BANGKOK – President Marcos expressed willingness yesterday to visit the countries of fellow leaders who invited him but admitted everything would still depend on his schedule and workload.

“What countries have invited me? All. What countries will I accept? All. Kaya marami pa tayong ganito (So we will have more of this),” Marcos told reporters here.

“I’d like to go to them all at some point. Pero you know the scheduling, I have to go back to Manila at marami rin kaming kailangan ayusin at tapusin (we have many things to fix and finish). It’s always very useful,” he added.

Marcos has so far traveled to five countries as President, namely Indonesia, Singapore, US, Cambodia and Thailand. He is scheduled to leave for Belgium to attend a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union and make a state visit to China in January.

At the ASEAN Summit in Cambodia earlier this month, the President said he had accepted “several” state visit invitations, including those from Thailand, Vietnam and Brunei.

Marcos said it was “really surprising” that leaders from countries like France and Canada participate in conferences like the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit even if they are hosted by a distant country.

Marcos revealed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has expressed his intention to visit the Philippines.

“I told him he has to visit, and he surprised us all, he said ‘Yes, I have to because my second mother comes from the Philippines’,” the President added.

“It is well recognized that the Asia-Pacific region is still going to be the driver of the global economy, which is starting already. And as things calm down, the pandemic goes away, hopefully the Ukraine conflict at least have (been) brought to peace, if it happens... I think I’m confident when I say that this area will be the one that will be the driving force,” Marcos said.

On the sidelines of the APEC Summit, Marcos held bilateral meetings with the leaders of China, Saudi Arabia, France, New Zealand and Australia.

“It’s very encouraging to see that our partners, member countries in terms of ASEAN, and the member economies in terms of APEC, the countries seem to have a great deal of commonality in terms of identifying what the problems are that we face and should be prioritized,” Marcos said.