Marcos says Indonesia will probably supply Philippines with fertilizer, coal

SINGAPORE — President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. said Tuesday that he and Indonesian President Joko Widodo had talked about the possibility of Indonesia supplying the Philippines with fertilizer.

Speaking to reporters before leaving for Singapore, Marcos, who sits as the Agriculture chief, said he raised agricultural concerns to President Jokowi during their meeting.

"And I brought up the subject of agriculture, again because that is in my mind a very important subject that needs to be discussed. And we talked about the possibility of them supplying us with fertilizer with urea of Indonesia," Marcos said.

Marcos also said they talked about increasing the trade for energy because much of the Philippines' coal comes from Indonesia.

"And there was a time a few weeks back, they stopped export coal. Nakiusap tayo sa kanila at sinama naman tayo doon sa listahan na bibigyan nila. Mag-export sila ng coal," Marcos said.

(We made a request and they included us in the list of those countries which they would supply with coal. They will export coal.)

"We talked about then the place of the renewable energies because coal nga is not seen as the most environmentally friendly fuel. Sabi ko, how do we shift? How does Indonesia plan to shift renewable? Pinagusapan din namin ‘yun [We also talked about that]," he added. — BM, GMA News