A recent Social Weather Station (SWS) poll from June 23 to July 1 found that 51 percent of Filipinos see almost no benefit from President Marcos’ foreign visits.

Of that 51 percent, 34 percent of respondents believe the international trips had "little benefit," while 17 percent feel they had "almost no benefit at all."

Compared to a similar survey conducted in October 2022, the percentage of respondents who perceived little or almost no benefit from the President's foreign trips has risen from 30 percent to 14 percent, respectively.

SWS's 2024 second-quarter survey included 1,500 respondents and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent.

The SWS survey results were released after the Office of the President proposed a reduced travel budget of P1.054 billion for 2025, an 8 percent or P94 million decline from this year's P1.148 billion.

However, the Office of the President's travel funds for this year were 58 percent higher than the P893.57 billion allocated for 2023.

Despite the reduced funding for next year, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said in a recent Palace briefing that the President will still need to undertake his trips abroad to pursue the investment commitments secured during his previous visits.

“In many of those pledges, memorandums of understanding and agreement were already signed, and the President needs to do follow-ups to make sure that these investment pledges would be realized,” she explained.

Marcos has completed 24 international trips to 17 countries since assuming office on June 30, 2022.

He embarked on state visits to Indonesia and Singapore, attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and participated in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Cambodia in 2022.

Marcos also visited Thailand for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit and traveled to Brussels, Belgium for the EU-ASEAN Summit. Marcos made a second trip to Singapore in 2022 to watch the Formula 1 Grand Prix, with Malacañang defending his attendance by stating he continued to fulfill his duties as Chief Executive.

He made 12 international trips in 2023 and had six trips to seven countries in 2024 alone.

His first trip in 2023 was a state visit to China in January, despite the peak of COVID-19 cases. He also traveled to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum and made an official visit to Tokyo, Japan.

In May, Marcos visited the United States, followed by participation in the ASEAN Summit in Labuan Bajo, Indonesia, and attended the coronation of King Charles III in London, with both the President and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos present at the reception held at Buckingham Palace.

He also made a second visit to Jakarta, Indonesia, for the ASEAN Summit. The President conducted a state visit to Malaysia, returned to Singapore for a speaking engagement at the 10th Asian Conference, and attended the ASEAN-GCC Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Additionally, he embarked on a three-leg trip to the US, attending the APEC Summit in San Francisco, California, and making working visits to Los Angeles, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Marcos' final trip of the year was to Tokyo, Japan, for the 50th anniversary of ASEAN-Japan friendship and cooperation.

In 2024, Marcos visited Brunei and Australia twice and once to Vietnam, Germany, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Singapore.

Assertion

Malacañang has consistently asserted that these foreign trips are intended to attract investments to the country.

Last June, former Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual said investment promotion agencies (IPAs) had secured $19 billion in projects from Marcos' official foreign visits.

Pascual explained that these investments are linked to 65 projects. Of these, 12 are already operational, 21 have registered with the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), and 32 are in the process of registering with DTI’s IPAs.

“$19 billion of the investments have already cleared,” Pascual said, adding that the figure is higher than the $14 billion actualized projects reported by DTI last February.

The 21 projects that have received approvals from the BOI and PEZA are set to invest a total of USD 1.6 billion. Meanwhile, the 32 projects currently in the registration process with IPAs have investments totaling $17 billion.*

In a previous report, the DTI recorded 148 investment leads worth $72.2 billion as of December 2023.

FDIs drop

However, foreign direct investments (FDI) in the country saw a significant drop in the first quarter, raising concerns about the investment climate's health amid tight financial conditions.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority released last May showed that the government approved total FDI pledges of P148.43 billion from January to March, a 63.6 percent decrease year-on-year.

The reported figure pertains to FDIs pledged for the country's ecozones, which attract investors with tax benefits and other financial incentives. Although these pledges may not always lead to actual investment inflows, they remain a key indicator of investor sentiment.