President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. used his first-ever visit to Russia to extend an invitation to President Vladimir Putin to attend the ASEAN Summit set for Manila in November, when the Philippines closes out its turn as chair of the regional bloc.
The invitation came as the two heads of state sat down for bilateral talks in Kazan, capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, on Wednesday. Held alongside the wider ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit, the meeting put energy supply and food security at the center of the agenda — priorities driven in part by the strain the Philippines has absorbed from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Russia carries considerable weight in both areas. Figures from the International Energy Agency, compiled by GMA News Research, place the country as the second-largest natural gas producer worldwide, trailing only the United States, while it holds the planet’s biggest gas reserves and ranks first among gas exporters.
The timing of the encounter was deliberate. The Philippines and Russia first opened formal diplomatic ties on June 2, 1976, and this month marks the 50th year of that relationship. For Marcos, the visit also carried a personal weight: half a century earlier, his father, then-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., made the journey to the former Soviet Union in a trip that produced those original diplomatic ties.
Marcos framed that legacy in remarks tied to the summit, saying his father’s 1976 visit “opened an enduring chapter in Philippines-Russia relations grounded in mutual respect, dialogue, and cooperation – one that we continue to build upon today.”
As the bloc’s chair, the President pitched the gathering as a working summit rather than a ceremonial one. “As Chair of ASEAN, the Philippines is committed to ensuring that this Commemorative Summit produces substantive and forward-looking outcomes that deepen ASEAN’s Strategic Partnership with Russia and contribute, in concrete terms, to regional peace, stability, and shared prosperity,” he said.
He pointed to the breadth of the planned discussions, which span peace and security, trade and investment, food and energy security, science and technology, digital transformation, education, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges. The Philippines, he added, would keep pressing for unity within the bloc and for a rules-based regional order anchored in international law, in line with its chairship theme, “Navigating Our Future Together.”
The summit itself gathers Russia and all eleven ASEAN members — the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste — to take stock of 35 years of partnership and map out where cooperation in trade, investment, energy, and food security heads next.
Marcos and his delegation departed Manila late Tuesday night and touched down in Kazan the same morning, where local hosts welcomed him with chak-chak, a traditional Tatar pastry, as part of the arrival honors.
With the President abroad, Malacañang named a caretaker team to mind the government in his absence. Palace Press Officer Undersecretary Claire Castro identified Acting Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III, and Labor Secretary Francis Tolentino as the officials holding down those duties.
