President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. does not see the need for him to cut short his 6-day visit to the United States to monitor the government’s response to the 6.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Mindanao on Friday.

Marcos Jr. is currently in Los Angeles, California, which is the second leg of his continuing 6-day visit to the United States.

He was previously in San Francisco to join other state leaders at the 30th APEC Economic leaders Summit.

The Philippine leader expressed confidence that disaster-response agencies of the government are able to do their jobs even without him at the helm.

“Well If there’s something that’s need to be done that cannot be done by anybody but myself, I will go home. But as I said, alam na nila ang gagawin eh,” he said. “That’s my hope – we tried to organize the government in such a way that these are standard operating procedures already. You don’t have to question of what do we do next, nakasulat na lahat ‘yan.”

Marcos however said he is coordinating with government agencies to monitor the situation in Mindanao following the earthquake.

“‘Yung police nag-rereport din sa atin and we’re getting good reports, fairly accurate reports because hindi talaga bumagsak ang communication system, maybe in the isolated areas, but in general the communication system stayed up, power stayed on, water is still running,” he said.

“So I think--- I hope hanggang diyan na lang but we’ll keep looking and seeing and determine, and assess what the damage really has been. 6.8 is a strong, strong earthquake.”

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