Under the PCA, the Commission shall be composed of a chairperson and four commissioners. The chairperson and the commissioners have the rank equivalent of cabinet secretary and undersecretary, respectively. They are appointed by the President for a term of seven years without reappointment.
Prior to joining the PCC, Commissioner Marah Victoria S. Querol was Senior Deputy Executive Secretary, with the rank of Secretary, at the Office of the President. As a technocrat, she rose through the ranks from being a Technical Assistant under its Strategic Initiatives Management Office (SIMO) in 2010 to Undersecretary in 2016-2022. Having served under two Presidents, Commissioner Querol played an instrumental role in crafting key policies of the last two administrations.
Commissioner Querol is backed by experience in economics, business, and law. She obtained her Juris Doctor degree and Master of Business Administration degree at the Ateneo de Manila University, and her Economics degree at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Prior to joining the PCC, Commissioner Michael B. Peloton was the Board Director at the Philippine Reclamation Authority. In 2019, he was appointed as overseer of the Insurance Commission. He also served as a technical assistant at the Office of the President in 2016, and as a consultant thereafter.
Commissioner Peloton has 17 years of experience in private law practice. He was also a Constitutional Law professor at the Ateneo de Davao University and IT professor at the University of Immaculate Concepcion.
Commissioner Peloton earned his Bachelor of Laws and Computer Science degrees from Ateneo de Davao University.
Commissioner Lolibeth Ramit-Medrano has extensive experience in government service with expertise on intellectual property (IP), public policy and administration, international trade negotiations, international cooperation, and legislative affairs. Her 24-year public service record spans different technical and leadership roles, previously as Undersecretary of the Office of the President. Prior to that, she was the Director of the Bureau of Patents at the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) where she received the 2020 Presidential Gawad Career Executive Service (CES) Award for her exemplary performance in government service.
Commissioner Medrano graduated cum laude with a degree in Public Administration from the University of the Philippines Diliman and obtained her Juris Doctor degree from San Beda University College of Law. She earned her Master’s Degree in Politics and Public Policy as an Australian Development Scholar at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and Master of Laws specializing in Intellectual Property at the Ateneo De Manila Law School.
Commissioner Medrano completed advanced courses and programs on IP and trade offered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland. She served as the first Chairperson of the ASEAN Industrial Design Task Force. She was also a member of the Supreme Court Sub-Committee for the Revision of the Rules of Procedure for the Intellectual Property Rights Cases. She is a law professor of IP courses at the Ateneo De Manila Law School, San Beda Alabang College of Law, and UP Open University.
Prior to joining PCC, Commissioner Negre was the dean at the Manuel L. Quezon University School of Law, was the chairperson of the Commercial Law and Intellectual Property (IP) Department of the Ateneo Law School, and is a professor and faculty member at the Ateneo Law School. He is a founding partner of Bengzon-Negre-Untalan Law where he handled IP cases, was a member of the Supreme Court Sub-Committee on Special Rules in IP Cases, and served as an Examiner for Mercantile Law in the 2014 Bar Examinations. He was also the president of the Licensing Executives Society of the Philippines, corporate secretary of the Philippine Franchise Association, and corporate counsel of the Philippine Retailers Association.
He is backed by expertise in law and business being a certified public accountant, IP law expert, and legal educator.
Commissioner Negre obtained his Bachelor of Science Degree in Commerce, Major in Accounting from the University of Sto. Tomas, a Juris Doctor degree from the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law, and a Master of Intellectual Property from Pierce University in New Hampshire, USA. He attended a Post-Graduate Scholarship Program on Intellectual Property at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center in Germany and went to the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute in London, UK. He is currently taking a Post Graduate Diploma Program on Economics for Competition Law at King’s College London.
FORMER COMMISSIONERS
Atty. Johannes Benjamin R. Bernabe served as a Senior Fellow at the Geneva-based International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, where he contributed in formulating and analyzing policy reforms to the international trade system. He was also an Of Counsel at Ocampo Manalo Law Office.
His breadth of experience in trade regulation and economic law includes serving as a trade negotiator for the Philippines at the World Trade Organization from 1999 to 2005. He specialized in competition law and trade facilitation, among other economic policies, as a Research Fellow at the Center for the Advancement of Trade Integration and Facilitation.
During the 16th Congress, he served as the lead adviser to the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives on key economic legislation, which includes the PCA. Atty. Bernabe graduated cum laude, earning a degree in Economics from the University of the Philippines, where he also subsequently finished his law degree. He pursued further studies as a Chevening Fellow at the University of London, and at the International Development Law Institute in Sydney, Australia.
Before joining the PCC on March 5, 2020, Atty. Emerson B. Aquende headed the Legal Education Board (LEB), the government agency regulating legal education in the country. He has gained experience in insurance and finance as board director in the United Coconut Planters Life Assurance Corp., UCPB General Insurance Co., Inc., and its various subsidiaries.
He practiced law as a litigation attorney, and has accumulated more than 22 years in the academe, 14 years of which as the law dean of the University of Santo Tomas-Legazpi (Aquinas University). He also currently teaches law in the University of Philippines College of Law.
Atty. Aquende earned his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of the Philippines, after receiving his degree in Bachelor of Science in Commerce (Legal Management) from De La Salle University.
Atty. Macario R. De Claro, Jr. is a CPA lawyer and has worked in companies in the fields of manufacturing, mining, telecommunications, real estate, and banking and finance prior to his appointment to the PCC.
He started his career as a senior accountant in a mining company and later as a budget systems analyst at San Miguel Corporation. After passing the bar exams, he worked as a litigation and corporate lawyer in various companies before he was tapped by the Philippine National Bank (PNB) as technical assistant to the President and CEO in 1995.
After his retirement from PNB in 2003, he resumed his legal and accounting profession as a consultant to real estate companies and various startup companies; and at one time served as a legal consultant to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Atty. De Claro, Jr. earned a Bachelor of Laws degree (magna cum laude) from the Ateneo De Davao Law School. Prior to that, he graduated magna cum laude from the De La Salle College with a Bachelor of Science in Commerce, Major in Accounting.
Atty. Amabelle C. Asuncion boasts of a diverse experience that spans the public and private sectors. In the public sector, she has served as Executive Director for the Senate Oversight Committee on Climate Change, Senate legislative officer, and adjudication chief of the National Water Resources Board. She also served as law and policy reform consultant for the Asian Development Bank.
In the private sector, Atty. Asuncion has extensive experience in commercial and corporate practice. She advised top local and foreign businesses in various capacities, including as chief legal counsel and as a corporate partner of a law firm.
Immediately prior to joining the PCC, she was advocacy adviser for the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.
Atty. Asuncion received her law degree from the University of the Philippines and pursued her Master of Laws (with distinction) in International Legal Studies from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. She is also admitted to the New York bar. She finished her BA English Studies from the University of the Philippines where she graduated magna cum laude. She was editor of the Philippine Law Journal and has published works locally and internationally, including in the European Journal of International Law.
Dr. Stella Alabastro Quimbo is an academician who served as a Professor and the Department Chair of the University of the Philippines School of Economics prior to her appointment in the Philippine Competition Commission.
From 2011 to 2013, she was a Prince Claus Professorial Chair Holder at Erasmus University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Quimbo has an extensive research portfolio in the field of Health Economics, Industrial Organization, Microeconomics, Education, Poverty, and Public Policy and Regulation. This includes her attendance in a succession of both international and local academic conferences, and authorship of numerous scientific and technical publications, one of which was acclaimed 2015 Outstanding Scientific Paper Awardee by The National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). Later, NAST also conferred on her the Outstanding Youth Scientist Award.
She was also a Freedom Flame Awardee of a German foundation for liberal politics, Friedrich Neumann Foundation for Freedom Philippine Office, and a recipient of the UP President Edgardo J. Angara Fellowship and UP Diliman Centennial Faculty Grant.
She obtained her BS in Economics (summa cum laude), MA in Economics and PhD in Economics from the University of the Philippines in 1991, 1993 and 2000, respectively. She spent a year at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) as a post-doctoral fellow in 2002 at the Population Studies and Training Center.
Atty. El Cid R. Butuyan served as a Commissioner of the Philippine Competition Commission from February 2016 to July 2017. He served as the Head of Investigations and Litigation for the World Bank East Asia-Pacific (EAP) Team in the Integrity Vice-Presidency (INT), an independent unit of the World Bank Group in Washington DC that investigates and pursues sanctions related to fraud and corruption in World Bank Group-financed projects. In this capacity, Atty. Butuyan conducted audits, fact-finding investigations and litigation on cases relating to anti-competitive practices, corruption, collusion, cartel behavior, coercion and fraud by multinational and local firms. He also performed oversight functions to over US$7 billion annual portfolio in the region.
As a result of its findings, Atty. Butuyan’s World Bank team has issued Show Cause Letters and pursued sanctions proceedings against multinational and local firms including in major markets in the US, Europe and in Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. He has led negotiations with the offending firms, through a leniency program and voluntary disclosure arrangements, resulting in settlement agreements which, in addition to mitigated penalties, required payment of restitution/fines.
From 2004 to 2009, he was among the selected legal counsels of the World Bank Legal Vice-Presidency, where he contributed to policy reforms, early sanctions reform and anticorruption efforts of the World Bank.
In 2007, US Supreme Court Justice and former Dean Elena Kagan appointed him as Wasserstein Fellow “in recognition of outstanding contributions and dedication to public interest law.” He previously clerked for the Supreme Court and practiced with a major Philippine law firm.
At present, he is a Faculty Member at Harvard Law School where he teaches a course on Transnational Corruption. He also sits as Co-Chair of the ABA International Committee-Criminal Justice Section.
Atty. Butuyan is a Bachelor of Law graduate and a Dean’s Medal for Academic Excellence awardee at the University of the Philippines. He later pursued his Masters of Laws in Harvard Law School.