When Cebu hosted Asean Summit meetings in 2007, it spruced itself up for the world. Roads were paved, lampposts went up, a convention center rose and hotels filled. It showed the world that Cebu had become an international destination for business and regional diplomacy.
This week, the Asean or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is returning, but Cebu is different as it had just suffered major calamities. Quakes and floods have reshaped lives and neighborhoods. Infrastructure and flood control project failures have led to lost lives and property. Public trust in institutions has declined.
Back then, the promise was transformation. Hosting the Asean was supposed to bring long-term gains such as investments and tourism. Nearly two decades later, we can say Cebu has modernized in appearance, but not necessarily in systems.
A government announcement said the Asean Tourism Forum (ATF) will be held here from Jan. 27 to 30, 2026, with Cebu being positioned as a hub for regional tourism cooperation and economic recovery. Tourism ministers, senior officials, national tourism organizations and industry leaders from Asean member-states, along with dialog partners China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Russia and India, will be among the expected 5,000 official delegates.
In 2007, under then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Asean Summit in Cebu tackled trade agreements and disaster mitigation, among others. But the 2007 summit ended on a sour note. Cebu’s hosting was marred in the months that followed with questions over summit-related spending. These were on spending for the rushed road works, the decorative lampposts that were supposed to spruce up roads but became an anomaly and the reported overpriced construction of the Cebu International Convention Center, the main summit venue.
Several government officials were cited for criminal liability but some of them, including then governor Gwen Garcia, were later cleared of the charges.
So far, there have been no corruption scandals tied to the Asean Summit 2026 preparations in Cebu. This can be seen as progress. The test may come later if indeed public money is now better protected.
This matters because today Cebu faces new realities than those of 2007. Road congestion, overpopulation, unregulated upland development, flash floods, garbage slide and corruption in infrastructure projects.
Cebu is hosting the Asean Summit meetings again while still struggling with current challenges. Many Cebuanos are still picking up broken lives from the recent disasters. These may be local concerns that do not need regional intervention but issues such as climate change, erroneous urban planning and unregulated development can be topics of unity for the region.
What did Cebu gain in the 2007 summit? Visibility, yes. But we could have also learned about the best ways to preserve the environment, regulate urbanization and improve services.
The contrast between then and now is that Cebu no longer needs to prove it can host world leaders. It needs to prove it has learned how to govern itself better.