23 OCT 2026 — The ASEAN ministers responsible for transnational crime ended their annual meeting in Makati City on 21 October having adopted the bloc's first regional report on human trafficking, the ASEAN Secretariat said. The ministerial meeting on transnational crime, known as the AMMTC, held its 20th session from 19 to 21 October, in person and by videoconference, and ended with a symbolic handover of the chair to Singapore, which takes over in 2027.
Online scams ran through the chair's public remarks in Makati. They do not appear among the outcomes the Secretariat chose to list, and the joint statements the meetings issued had not been posted on the ASEAN website by 23 October.
What the Secretariat says was agreed
In its summary of the meetings, published on 21 October, the Secretariat named two key outcomes. The first was a region-wide report on trafficking in persons, which ministers adopted and which the Secretariat called "ASEAN's first regional, ASEAN-led and consensus-based reporting mechanism on TIP".
The second was approval to set up an ASEAN Immigration Training Centre, together with an ASEAN Heads of Consular Affairs Division Forum. The forum becomes a new body under the meeting of immigration directors-general and consular chiefs, known as the DGICM.
Ministers also noted the results of the 26th SOMTC, the senior officials' meeting on transnational crime, and the 29th DGICM. Senior officials had held preparatory sessions on 19 October. The Secretariat said each ministerial meeting and consultation issued a joint statement, but it did not publish the texts alongside its summary.
The chair's account of the statements
Philippine Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, who chaired the meeting, described the main joint statement as broad. Speaking at a press conference, he said the text did not name nihilistic violent extremism, the term used for violence driven by general hatred rather than a political cause. "The joint (ASEAN) statement is very general. It did not mention NVE in particular. But it did mention cybercrime and transnational crimes," he said, in remarks reported by The Chronicle.
The Daily Tribune reported that the ministers and their counterparts from Japan, South Korea and China adopted a statement setting out next steps on trafficking, terrorism and cybercrime. "We came here for one reason: To protect our people," Remulla said, adding that scams, money laundering and drug trafficking "now feed each other".
An AI child-abuse declaration in progress
Remulla also pointed to a planned ASEAN declaration to shield children from sexual abuse and exploitation online, covering material made with artificial intelligence. Vietnam's state news agency described it as one of the key items on the agenda.
Whether ministers adopted it in Makati is not clear from what has been published. The Secretariat's summary does not mention it, and the Philippine reports describe it as having been advanced.
Singapore's scam proposals and what came before
Singapore arrived with two scam initiatives of its own. In its country statement on 20 October, delivered by Senior Minister of State Goh Pei Ming, it said it had proposed an ASEAN Code of Practice that "will establish baseline anti-scam safeguards for online platforms", and an ASEAN Best Practices Guide on Combatting Scams for police forces working on cross-border asset recovery. RECATOOLS covered those proposals earlier this week.
Neither initiative is named in the Secretariat's summary of outcomes, so their status after Makati is unknown. The previous meeting did produce a written commitment on scams. At the 19th AMMTC in Melaka in September 2025, ministers adopted a regional declaration against cybercrime and scams, drafted under Singapore's lead, and widened the cybercrime priority area to cover online scams, according to that meeting's joint statement.
What Singapore inherits in 2027
Singapore already acts as ASEAN's voluntary lead shepherd, or co-ordinating country, on cybercrime and scams, the role it set out in its 20 October statement. From 2027 it will also chair the AMMTC itself.
Remulla argued that regional cooperation was already paying off. "Cooperation is not just an idea, it is already producing results," he said, pointing to the Philippines keeping its Tier 1 rating in the annual US trafficking report for an 11th straight year, the Tribune reported. Only once the texts are released will it be clear how far the Makati statements commit members to anything specific on scams.
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