MANILA - PHILIPPINE President Benigno Aquino said on Wednesday he would skip an Asia-Europe summit in Brussels next month on the grounds that the forum's most important leaders would be absent.
'A lot of the principal heads of the state that we would have hoped to be able to meet have not confirmed at this point in time their attendance,' he told reporters without giving names. 'If there is no surety, (it is) not worth the expense,' he added.
ASEM groups the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with the European Union, China, South Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Pakistan and India. Critics have routinely dismissed the forum, saying that meetings tend to be hijacked by the issue of Myanmar.
European leaders like to use the meeting to raise concerns about the military regime while Myanmar's Southeast Asian neighbours traditionally prefer not to be seen as intervening in the affairs of their members.
Mr Aquino, son of the late Philippine democracy icon Corazon Aquino who took office on June 30, is preparing for his first overseas trip as Philippine leader next week for the annual UN General Assembly in New York.
He has also canceled two other trips to Indonesia and Vietnam this month to cut costs. -- AFP
