Atty. Michael G. Aguinaldo is a lawyer with extensive legal, governance and administration expertise acquired from over 30 years of professional work as a private law practitioner, government official and professor.

Atty. Aguinaldo is currently the Chairperson of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC), and the second Chairperson since the creation of the PCC. Prior to his appointment to the PCC, he was the Chairperson of the Commission on Audit (COA) where he led the agency on a seven-year strategic plan that centered on six strategic goals that helped improve various facets of the organization. From 2011 to 2015, he was the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs of the Office of the President, and also headed the Investigation and Adjudication Office (formerly the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission). As Deputy Executive Secretary, he oversaw the implementation of integrity initiatives consistent with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).

He began his legal career with the De Borja Medialdea Ata Bello Guevara and Serapio Law Office, and spent 17 years with the Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & de los Angeles law firm where he was a partner and member of the Executive Committee. During this time, he acquired extensive experience and expertise in handling special projects in the areas of infrastructure, telecommunications, and energy.

Chairperson Aguinaldo was a faculty member of the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law, where he obtained his juris doctor degree in 1992, and placed 7th in the Philippine Bar Examinations during the 1992 Bar Examinations. He holds a master’s degree with special concentration in International Economic Law from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Dr. Arsenio M. Balisacan is an economist with extensive high-level policymaking practice and a well-recognized expert in Asia on economic development, inequality, poverty, antitrust (competition policy), and the political economy of policy reforms.

A member of the regular faculty of the University of the Philippines School of Economics for over three decades, Professor Balisacan is serving as the first Chairperson of the Philippine Competition Commission. Before this appointment, he was Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and, concurrently, Director-General of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in 2012-2016. As NEDA Director-General, he served as Board Chairman of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and as the first Board Chairperson of the Philippine Statistics Authority and the Public-Private Partnership Center of the Philippines.

Previous to his Cabinet appointment, he was Dean of the UP School of Economics, Director-Chief Executive of the Southeast Asian Regional Centre for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), and Undersecretary for Policy and Planning of the Department of Agriculture. Before joining the UP faculty in 1987, he was Research Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu and Economist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

He has authored and co-edited seven books and published, both locally and internationally, close to 100 academic papers and book chapters on various development issues, particularly in the Philippines and East Asia. His papers have appeared in, among others, Economics Letters, World Development, Review of World Economics, and Economic Development and Cultural Change. He founded—and served as editor in 2004-2016 of—the Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development.

He is a lifetime Member-Academician of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST Philippines), the country’s top peer-elected body serving as principal adviser to the nation on science, technology, and innovation for national development.

Dr. Balisacan pursued his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Hawaii, MS in Agricultural Economics from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, and B.S. in Agriculture (magna cum laude) from the Mariano Marcos State University.