MANILA, Philippines — When leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) converge on Mactan Island in Cebu from May 7 to 8, their goal will be near-singular: figure out how the bloc could protect itself from the effects of a war on another side of the world. 

The 48th ASEAN Summit is the first leaders-level meeting this year with the Philippines as chair. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. earlier announced that the meeting in Mactan would be a “bare-bones” summit that will focus specifically on the effects of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, covering the issue of oil supply, food supply and prices, and migrant workers’ welfare. 

The Philippines, as chair, had asked the 10 other members of the bloc if they wanted to postpone the scheduled May meeting. “The consensus that we came to is that it is precisely now that we must coordinate our efforts,” Marcos said in late March, just days after placing the Philippines under a year-long national energy emergency. 

Spotlight on energy, food, migrant workers 

The three areas that leaders will focus on are precisely what the Marcos government has both focused on and been criticized for. 

Of all ASEAN members, the Philippines is arguably the most dependent on oil from the Middle East — whether it be crude oil that’s processed in the country’s sole refinery operated by Petron Corp. or petroleum products sourced from the Gulf but processed in nearby Asian countries. 

Asia has been among the hardest hit by the almost total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where up to 84% of crude oil and 83% of liquified natural gas destined for Asia passed through before the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Before the first strikes against Tehran in late February 2026, vessels enjoyed transit passage across the Strait based on international law. 

India-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF), in a late April 2026 analysis, noted that the International Energy Agency had flagged in 2024 Southeast Asia’s reliance on the Middle East for oil. “The crisis underscores the structural vulnerability of Southeast Asia’s energy dependence on distant and volatile supply regions,” said authors Sreeparna Banerjee and Abhishek Sharma.  

Fears of food shortages are tied to the disruptions in the Strait and the greater Gulf, too. Farming relies heavily on petroleum-based fertilizers — the accessibility and pricing of which are also dependent on the stability of global supply chains. 

The Philippines is also the country where most labor migrants from Southeast Asia to the rest of the world come from — with Indonesia trailing a distant second, based on 2020 data from the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) featured in ASEAN’s Migration Outlook released in 2024. 

According to the IOM’s Asia-Pacific Migration Data Report for 2025, Southeast Asia and the Pacific account for 8.3% of the world’s migrant workers, with nearly half of them (47%) in the services sector. 

Based on the agenda set by the Philippines, the leaders’ plenary or the more formal meeting between ASEAN leaders, will focus on “community building” and moving “forward.” The draft agenda for the meeting indicates that talks will center on energy security for the bloc, “stabilizing food security,” and the “safety of ASEAN nationals.” 

The more casual retreat of the leaders will be used to exchange views on “regional and international issues.” While the latter phrase is typical in most ASEAN Summits, the 48th Summit in Cebu is expected to specifically focus on the bloc’s ability to “manage and mitigate the impacts of oil supply and price volatility arising from geopolitical tensions,” and “lessons learned from the recent geopolitical crisis,” based on initial notes seen by Rappler.

In most summits, leaders take on a wide range of issues, both regional and international. This could mean everything from concerns over the rise of Artificial Intelligence and how this could affect ASEAN, regional concerns such as the situation in Myanmar, or growing tensions in the South China Sea. 

ASEAN Summits have been singular in their focus before, most recently in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic with Vietnam as chair. It was the first time ASEAN Summits — a special summit and later on, the larger November summit — were held online due to travel restrictions related to the pandemic. 

Cebu as host, Philippines as chair 

The last time Cebu, a hub for trade and culture in the Visayas, hosted ASEAN was in 2007 under former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It was that summit that birthed the bloc’s current makeup — of three pillars covering economy, security, and socio-cultural communities. 

Prior to the Cebu Declaration on the Acceleration of the Establishment of an ASEAN Community, ASEAN only operated under two pillars, economy and security. 

The three pillars are also chaired by officials from whoever is chair of the bloc. So, for 2026, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is chaired by Trade Secretary Cristina Roque, the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) is chaired by Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro, while the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) is chaired by Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian.

All three communities will have convened at least once prior to the 48th ASEAN Summit in Mactan island.  

Cebu province is home to over 5.2 million Filipinos, according to the latest 2024 census. It is also the most vote-rich province in the Philippines, making it a hub of political power as well.

The local language is Bisaya, spoken in at least 16% of households in the country. Like the rest of the Philippines, many Cebuanos are fluent in English and Filipino.

Manila’s chairmanship of ASEAN had been a daunting task, long before the first missile was fired in the gulf. The Philippines, a treaty ally of the United States, would have to balance superpower competition in a region whose affinity with and ties to Washington or Beijing vary widely. 

At least three security issues that predate the new war in the Middle East persist, even as they’ve had to play second fiddle to the economic and human impact on the region of the war on Iran. 

Manila hopes to conclude Code of Conduct on the South China Sea negotiations between ASEAN members and China before the year ends. It must also deal with border tensions between Cambodia and Thailand. The Armed Forces of the Philippines has since formally taken over as head of the ASEAN Observer Team in the border. 

The bloc will also have to figure out the next steps in dealing with Myanmar after an election that resulted in the win of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing as president. At a press briefing on Wednesday, May 6, ASEAN spokesperson Deputy Assistant Secretary Dominic Xavier Imperial of the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs said that while no consensus has been made on the recognition of the recent Myanmar elections, engagement continues. 

In 2021, ASEAN leaders decided that the bloc would not engage with junta leaders. Naypyidaw is still represented in the bloc by its Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a civic servant. – Rappler.com