President Aquino has cancelled his visits to Indonesia and Vietnam early this month and will instead fly to the United States in his maiden voyage abroad.

The President, speaking to reporters in the Palace, said his visits to Indonesia and Vietnam were put off due to conflict of schedule with his counterparts. His trips to the two Asian neighbors will likely be rescheduled in October.

“Cancelled ang trips (The trips are cancelled). The first one would be America,” the President said.

“Indonesia, I understand, can only accommodate us sometime in October,” he said.

The President was originally scheduled to visit Vietnam on September 13 and 14 and Indonesia on September 14 and 15. His US tour starts on September 20.

Since Vietnam will host the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting this October, the President said that will be the time to visit Hanoi instead to save government funds.

“I did promise that I would limit the trips to those that are absolutely necessary,” he said. “As you see Vietnam is the host for ASEAN this year and we should visit Vietnam. In keeping with our promise to be more judicious in the way we spend the people’s money, especially the fact that we have very little left, I felt it was prudent to have one trip rather than two,” he said.

Despite cancelling his trips to the two Asian countries, the President said he would likely bump into the leaders of Indonesia and Vietnam when they attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York City this month.

Asked about his meeting with US President Barack Obama, the President said he would probably meet him at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

While his attendance to the ASEAN summit in Hanoi has already been set this October, he said they are working on resetting the trip to Indonesia in the same month “assuming there is nothing that happens untoward like most of the storms just approaching the country.”

Also on Tuesday, Aquino said he does not mind if his trust ratings would go down because of the flak he is getting on the police mishandling of the hostage drama in Manila that killed eight Hong Kongers last August 23.

Acknowledging that "these numbers fluctuate," Aquino hopes that in the long run, people will appreciate his efforts to institute reforms so such incidents could be prevented from happening in the future.

"Well that may be the hope of some of our detractors but I think once the people are aware of exactly what it is, but more importantly what we are going to do and what we have been doing, that will be maintained. But of course, these numbers fluctuate," Aquino said in an interview after speaking at the 2010 Metrobank Foundation Search for Outstanding Teachers (SOT) awarding ceremonies in Malacañang.

Aquino lamented that he was not given the so-called "honeymoon period" from his detractors in the first place.

"I never had a honeymoon. I think I can show you all of the columns that have been hitting me before I was even proclaimed. So that is to be expected with the turf, but I am sure a lot of them, especially those who have decided to be critics regardless of the circumstances and facts, once they know of the facts they will be hard pressed to come up with their next criticism," Aquino said. (with a report by JC Bello Ruiz)