The 43rd ASEAN Summit closing ceremony is held in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday, September 7.

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President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged fellow leaders to realize the loss and damage fund (LDF) that would assist poor countries battered by the effects of the climate crisis.

Marcos said countries with the smallest carbon footprints “disproportionately bear the heaviest burden.”

Aside from climate financing, technology transfer and country specific capacity-building are needed to “expedite a just transition to a climate-resilient economy,” he said.

Last year, at COP27, world leaders approved the creation of the LDF.

“We must oppose the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels in the South China Sea,” President Marcos says in his intervention at the 18th East Asia Summit attended by Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

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In what was, perhaps, his most pointed remarks during the ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged leaders in the East Asia Summit – all ASEAN members, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia, and the United States – to create a “determination to continue making this region as the epicentrum of growth.” 

“We have a shared responsibility to not create new conflicts to not create new tensions, to not create new wars and at the same time, we are also responsible to ease high tensions, to soften hard conditions to create rooms for dialogue and to bridge existential differences,” said the ASEAN chairman in his remarks at the opening the East Asia Summit. 

He added, “I ask the leaders of the East Asia Summit to make this forum a forum for us to strengthen cooperation [and not to… sharpen] rivalries.”

Indonesian President Joko Widodo speaks at the 18th East Asian Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday, September 7.

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Marcos met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on the sidelines of ASEAN to talk about “increased connectivity” in agriculture and aquaculture. 

“Our two countries will conclude an inter-government agreement on rice trade so that our rice export to the Philippines will ensure food security in the Philippines,” said Phạm. 

The Vietnamese leader said he looked forward to a “stable framework of cooperation of rice trade” of “at least five years.” 

While a sit-down trilateral meeting in Indonesia might be difficult to pull off, leaders of the Philippines, the US, and Japan met informally during the ASEAN Gala Dinner on Wednesday, September 6. 

According to Kyodo News, the three leaders agreed to work together in addressing “unilateral attempts to change the status quo” in the resource-rich South China Sea, which China claims in its entirety. Manila has been the subject of China’s harassment in those waters. 

Citing the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Kyodo said Marcos, US Vice President Kamala Harris, and Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to strengthen their cooperation “in various forms.”