Like what he hoped to bring home, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. came back home with a "harvest of business deals" from Indonesia and Singapore.
Marcos, with First Lady Marie Louise "Liza" Araneta-Marcos, and their son Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Alexander "Sandro" Marcos, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 at around 10:25 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 7, from Singapore—his last stop on his back-to-back inaugural state visits.
In his arrival speech, Marcos described his visits as "fruitful and engaging."
He announced that during his trips, he inked several pacts covering various areas of cooperation, which, he said, can be translated to $14.36 billion or P804.78 billion in investment pledges.
"I am proud to announce that we have signed and sealed a total of 10 letters of intent and 12 MOUs (memorandum of understandings) in the sectors of renewable energy, data centers, e-commerce, broadband technology, startups, government housing and agriculture, and witnessed the signings of several letters of intent and MOUs from 22 Indonesian and Singaporean investors," Marcos said.
"These investments if we put it all together value 14.36 billion US dollars or 804.78 billion Philippine pesos. This will support our country’s economic recovery efforts and create more jobs for Filipinos here in our country," he added.
The President said the next move of his administration is to translate these deals to actual gains for the Filipino people.
"We look forward to doing the work, the detailed work that is necessary to bring all of these proposals to fruition and that is what we are all now going to bend ourselves to this work," he said.
"We will not stop until we can come back and say na itong nasimulan na MOU at letters of intent ay nagkaroon na ng resulta (that these MOUs and letters of intent will deliver results)," he added.
During his arrival speech, the Chief Executive made a rundown on what happened during his two trips.
He reported that he and Indonesian President Joko Widodo have comprehensively discussed the two countries' overall bilateral ties, covering all facets of their relations, particularly defense, security, maritime cooperation, trade and investment, and people to people ties.
"Notably, President Widodo and I discussed the delimitation of our boundaries respective to our continental shelves which I hope can become a template to resolving conflicting claims. We talked about importing fertilizer into the PH and increasing coal imports for our energy supply," Marcos said.
Marcos and Widodo also agreed to pursue joint activities for the next five years as both countries' respective foreign ministers signed the PH-Indonesia Plan of Action for 2022 to 2027.
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For Singapore, he said his meetings with President Halimah Yacob and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong have highlighted the "deep and enduring friendship between our two countries."
"President Yacob spoke highly of her state visit to the Philippines in 2019 when our country celebrated our golden jubilee or 50 years of diplomatic relations. Prime Minister Lee and I also immediately made a connection as our fathers who were the leaders of our countries laid the groundwork for the foundation of ASEAN starting in 1967," the President said.
Marcos and Lee witnessed the signing and exchange of agreements on counter terrorism, personal data protection, digital cooperation, water resource management, and investment.