PCC Chief Arsenio Balisacan Is Bongbong Marcos' Incoming NEDA Boss
Revitalizing a pandemic-stricken economy will be presumptive president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s biggest challenge after inauguration day. Leading Marcos’ economic team will be Arsenio Balisacan, Marcos’ choice for the chief of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
“I’ve worked with him extensively at the time when I was governor. We have very similar thinking in that regard kaya’t malakas ang loob ko, I know he’s very competent, I know his policies are policies that will be for the betterment of our country,” said Marcos in a statement.
An economist and academic, Balisacan began his career as a research fellow at East-West Center, then as an economist with the World Bank in Washington D.C. He returned to the Philippines in the late ’80s and became an assistant economics professor at the University of the Philippines Los Banos before moving to the University of the Philippines Diliman - School of Economics.
After a number of years in the academic field, Balisacan entered the government when he became the Undersecretary for Policy and Planning at the Department of Agriculture from 2000 to 2001. Balisacan went on to head the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture from 2003 to 2009 before he became the dean of the UP School of Economics from 2010 to 2012.
The incoming NEDA chief served in NEDA as the Philippine Socioeconomic Planning Secretary from 2012 to 2016 under the late President Benigno Aquino III. In NEDA, Balisacan was part of the economic team that propelled the Philippine economy under the Aquino admin, achieving investment-grade rating and high GDP growth.
Aquino formed the Philippine Competition Commission in 2016, and promptly invited Balisacan to sit as the body’s first chairperson. As the head of the government’s antitrust agency, Balisacan is tasked with promoting a competitive economy and disallowing monopolies.
Balisacan is currently a professor at UP Diliman.
