UP PROFESSOR APPOINTED AS NEDA DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL
MANILA—President Benigno S. Aquino III recently appointed University of the Philippines Associate Professor Emmanuel F. Esguerra as Deputy Director-General of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
Esguerra will head the NEDA’s National Development Office (NDO) for Planning and supervise four NEDA sector staffs, namely the National Planning and Policy Staff; Trade, Industry and Utilities Staff; Agriculture Staff; and Social Development Staff.
The NDO provides technical staff support to the NEDA Board in coordinating the formulation of national and sectoral policies, plans and programs. It also monitors macroeconomic and sectoral performance, and conducts economic and development studies on macrolevel plans and policies.
Esguerra was chair of UPSE’s Department of Economics prior to his appointment to NEDA on July 4, 2012.
The new Deputy Director-General will also represent NEDA as member of the executive technical boards of three interagency committees under the NEDA Board, namely the Development Budget Coordination Committee, Social Development Committee and Committee on Tariff and Related Matters.
The NEDA Board is the country’s highest development planning and policy coordinating body. It is chaired by President Aquino, vice-chaired by Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan, and comprised of various Cabinet secretaries, the President of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines, the Governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and the Deputy Governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Esguerra obtained his PhD in Agricultural Economics at the Ohio State University, and his master’s and undergraduate degrees in Economics at UPSE. Specializing in labor, development and public economics, his current research covers employment and poverty effects of Philippine minimum wages, microfinance and poverty reduction.
During his stint at the UPSE, Esguerra was visiting exchange professor at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin, USA in 2011, director of UPSE’s Economics Research Center and editor of the Philippine Review of Economics from 2001 to 2007 and 2008 to 2010.
He has also done consulting work with multilateral agencies, such as the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank, among others.
MR No. 2012-50
09 July 2012
