After a fruitful visit to Indonesia, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. headed to Singapore for a state visit on Sept. 6-7 at the invitation of President Halimah Yacob. He conferred separately with the Singaporean President and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to discuss regional and global issues, and reinforce the two countries’ long-standing close bilateral relations.
According to the Philippine Embassy: “Singapore is the country's fifth largest trading partner in the world, and the largest in ASEAN. In 2021, despite the impact of the pandemic, Philippines-Singapore total trade hit $11.14 billion, an increase of 18.5 percent from the $9.40 billion registered in 2020.” The visit underlined the continuing aspiration to create more job opportunities in the country, as the new administration earnestly pursues economic recovery programs.
Meeting with the Filipino community, the President has likely discerned the increasing presence of professionals and skilled workers who now make up around 60 percent of the estimated 200,000 Filipinos who live and work in Singapore. Filipino information technology specialists are in high demand in Singapore, a global hub for global commerce and trade.
Accompanied by the First Lady, Louise Araneta-Marcos, the President also visited the Singapore Botanical Gardens, where an orchid was named after them.
Before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Singapore was the Philippines’ top tourist destination within ASEAN. The Philippine Embassy reports further: “In 2020, despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Singapore was second only to Malaysia as the country’s largest source of tourist arrivals within ASEAN, which saw 19,998 Singaporean tourists visiting the country.”
Only last April, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (PhilChamSG) was registered with the Registry of Societies, a development that is expected to boost trade and investment among the Philippines, Singapore, and ASEAN member states, with the chamber ready to provide information, facilitate connections, and empower joint entrepreneurial success for businesses.
When the Philippines and Singapore celebrated in 2019 the 50th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations, the breadth and depth of the two countries’ bilateral relations spanning the political, economic, environment, academic, people-to-people exchanges, and cultural spheres was showcased.
President Marcos and Prime Minister Lee witnessed the signing of agreements in the areas of counter-terrorism and data privacy. The first deliverable was the arrangement concerning the assignment of a team to the regional Counter-terrorism Information Facility (CITF) that was signed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Singapore Armed Forces.
The CITF is a multilateral platform for monitoring, researching, and analyzing terrorist activities. The Philippines could share its experience and expertise in addressing and combatting terrorism while gathering valuable intelligence from other countries and expanding its defense network.
Meanwhile, the memorandum of understanding (MOU) and cooperation in personal data protection signed by the National Privacy Commission (NPC) and the Personal Data Protection Commission of Singapore would help the Philippines protect the data privacy of Filipinos in the digital era and encourage data participation in the Philippine digital economy.
President Marcos returns to the country with an auspicious summation of his first two foreign visits:
“Mission accomplished.”