BUSAN, South Korea — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. capped the APEC leaders week with a wide-ranging briefing that touched on new investments, closer security, and economic cooperation with South Korea, a renewed push for multilateral trade rules, and an accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence across the government.

Turning to domestic concerns, the President indicated that the inter-agency Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) is a “work in progress,” amid the wave of criticisms besetting the body.

Marcos said the two-day summit in nearby Gyeongju “was actually a very productive meeting because the subjects that were taken up are some of the most important and difficult subjects that the Asia-Pacific countries are facing,” citing trade, AI, climate issues and supply-chain resilience.

“We are facing very precarious times,” he added, noting a “pretty universal” analysis among the leaders.

South Korea formally turned over the APEC chairmanship to China. “We witnessed the turnover of the APEC chair from Korea to the People’s Republic of China,” Marcos said.

Home concerns, ICI legality

Responding to a Supreme Court petition questioning the ICI, Marcos said challenges were expected but he defended its legality. “We’ll just have to answer those allegations and we’ll see how the Supreme Court decides,” he said.

“Before we started even thinking about organizing the ICI, I made sure that I got legal opinions from the best legal minds that I know. The opinions that came back were favorable.”

On funding, he said support is being aligned to the ICI’s evolving needs. “It’s a work in progress” — and promised full executive branch data access: “Any single item of information that you require from any department in the executive, you have it. No questions, no subpoena, no nothing.”

Marcos also explained his order to bring down DPWH costs across projects such as roads, schools, irrigation, and hospitals, pointing to both corruption and “friction costs” from the bureaucracy.

“Let’s bring the prices down to something closer to market,” he said, adding that streamlining is being pursued alongside investigations: “Now it’s time to let the ICI do its work and let the Ombudsman do his work, and let the DoJ do their work.”

P50.7-b Samsung expansion, 3,000 jobs

Marcos confirmed a fresh manufacturing expansion by Samsung in Calamba, Laguna.

“They made a commitment of a little over 50 billion pesos to expand. That translates to 3,000 new jobs,” he said, adding the pledge was helped by incentives under the CREATE MORE law.

“Because there is a Create More now, there are now incentives that make it easier for us to invest and to expand — that is their commitment,” he said.

He also said Samsung will partner with Philippine universities for workforce training and research and development. “That is a very good development,” he said.

After his first bilateral meeting with President Lee Jae-myung, Marcos said cooperation “will continue — at the very least developed, intensified, deepened.”

He cited South Korea’s role in defense modernization, joint exercises, and infrastructure financing. “They have an excellent idea of what the Philippines needs,” he said, adding he invited Lee to visit Manila: “I invited him, of course, to the Philippines, and I hope he will be able to come.”

U.S. task force, WPS posture

Asked about the new Task Force Philippines with the United States (US), Marcos said the point is “organizing ourselves into a more cohesive unit in terms of the protection of the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, the West Philippine Sea (WPS) for us.”

He stressed the effort should not raise tensions: “It will certainly not heighten them because it’s not something new. Tension only rises when someone tries something new.”

Marcos said there was no request from either side for a pull-aside with US President Donald Trump or China’s Xi Jinping.

“We didn’t ask; neither side asked for a meeting,” he said, adding that APEC was not the venue for West Philippine Sea talks: “This is APEC. It’s an economic meeting. We don’t really talk about such issues.”

On the Xi-Trump dialogue in Busan, he said information was scarce but “the best information I got is that they have declared peace for at least a year. So the trade war will be less intense at least for a year.”

He added: “We are waiting to see more… how it impacts the Philippines.”

WTO rules and multilateralism

Marcos said leaders around the APEC table broadly favored multilateral engagement over geopolitical blocs. “It is a rejection of the trend in geopolitics to force small nations to make a choice between one power group or another,” he said.

He pressed for a return to free-market principles under the World Trade Organization: “We have to return to the free market principles that WTO was created for. The trend now is the opposite. It’s closing markets.”

He also argued for broadening ties to “non-traditional partners” in Latin America. “We have to engage with as many partners, allies, friends as we can,” he said, recounting his exchanges with the leaders of Chile, Mexico and Peru.