Arsenio Balisacan

Arsenio Molina Balisacan is a Filipino economist and academic who has served as the first secretary of economy, planning, and development, under President Bongbong Marcos since 2025. Balisacan headed his department's predecessor, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), from May 2012 to January 2016 under the Benigno Aquino III administration. He then served under the Duterte administration as the Chairperson of the Philippine Competition Commission from February 1, 2016, to June 30, 2022. He was again appointed as NEDA Secretary under the Bongbong Marcos administration. During his first term in 2012, he concurrently served as NEDA Secretary and as Chairman of the Boards of the Philippine Statistics Authority, Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Philippine Center for Economic Development, and Public-Private Partnership Center.

Prior to his Cabinet appointment, Balisacan served as both Professor and Dean of the School of Economics at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UP) while he was running the Philippine Center for Economic Development as its executive director. He additionally served as the Director-Chief Executive of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), Balisacan is an academician of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) since 2008.

Early years

Balisacan was born in Solsona, Ilocos Norte, a remote town located at the foot of the Cordillera mountain range in Luzon. His father initially worked as a farm tenant tilling fields in a resource-poor, isolated village of the town. When their nun relative convinced his father to take on a janitorial job in Laoag City, however, his family had to make the difficult choice of leaving their farm life behind. During their life in the city, Balisacan, his parents, and his five other siblings had were left with little choice but to settle down in a precarious area of land (where they were later on be evicted from). Balisacan recalled that it was during his high school years when their family was forced out of the property and forced to go back to their tiny village at the easternmost part of Ilocos Norte. “It was tough. It was only later on that I realized that we were an informal settler. We were squatting in somebody’s land. [When] I was already in high school, we were evicted from that place, and we had to return to that old town of ours,” Balisacan shared.

From his primary-school days all the way to his journey during post-graduate studies, Balisacan had to rely on scholarships, grants, and part-time employment for financial support while his family struggled. He spent most of his formative years of basic education under the tutelage of the Divine Word College of Laoag and completed the last two years of secondary education in Ablan Memorial Academy of Solsona where he graduated as the valedictorian. Balisacan credits his mother's aunt, Isidra Rivera, who was mayor of the town of Solsona, as his early inspiration in life. “She devoted her life selflessly to this town,” he says. “She had actually very little physical possessions in life, especially when viewed in today’s cadre of local politicians. What she had in abundance was deep respect and love by her people, unblemished credibility, and genuine concern for the poor.”

Just when their family began to experience more financial struggles, Balisacan's eldest brother graduated from Divine Word College, equipped with an Accounting degree. He was offered a job in Cebu City by Atlas Mining, which allowed him to uproot the family and bring them to settle down in Cebu. Balisacan, however, who was an Agriculture scholar at the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) at the time, was left to stay behind in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

Read more of his early years in these featured articles, "Arsenio M. Balisacan: Resolute at 25" by Cai Ordinario, Business Mirror Anniversary Issue

Balisacan received critical support from the East-West Center (EWC) while studying at the University of Hawaii. He served as research intern from July 1982 to May 1984 and was a Joint-Doctoral Research Intern from May 1984 to September 1985 under the Resource Systems Institute of EWC. Upon earning his PhD he served as a research fellow from October 1985 to March 1986.

Secretary Balisacan was tasked to address the critical constraints that make economic growth slow, uneven, and exclusive to certain segments of the Philippine society.

Concurrent to his role in NEDA, he served as board chairman of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and the Philippine Center for Economic Development; the first Governing Board Chairperson of the Public-Private Partnership Center of the Philippines; and the first board chairperson of the Philippine Statistics Authority (which combines the National Statistical Coordination Board, the National Statistics Office, the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, the Department of Labor and Employment's Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics, and the Philippine Statistical Research Institute.)

PCC

Following the passage of the Philippine Competition Act (PCA) by Congress in 2015, President Benigno S. Aquino III formed the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) in January 2016, appointing Balisacan to serve as its first chairperson. PCC is an independent quasi-judicial body created to promote and protect market competition by prohibiting anti-competitive conduct and practices, including cartels and anti-competitive mergers. As the country's antitrust agency, PCC plays a key role in helping achieve a vibrant and inclusive economy and advancing consumer welfare.

Balisacan's effective leadership, combined with a competition act that gives the enforcer broad powers, has gotten the PCC off to a good start, placing the commission among the top emerging enforcers in developing countries only two years after its formation. Nonetheless, he faces formidable challenges as competition czar because the Philippines is cited as one of the most restrictive economies in the world (see Fostering Competition in the Philippines: The Challenge of Restrictive Regulation by the World Bank).

NEDA/DEPDev On May 27, 2022, Balisacan accepted the offer to become Secretary of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) under the incoming administration of Bongbong Marcos, who was then the presumptive president. He took office on June 30, 2022. On April 10, 2025, NEDA was reorganized and renamed into Department of Economy, Planning and Development (DEPDev), making him the first secretary of the department.

Personal life Arsenio Balisacan is a long-distance runner. He has run the Sydney Marathon in 2025 , Berlin Marathon in 2024 , Vancouver Marathon in 2023 New York Marathon (virtually) in 2021, Paris Marathon in 2019, Chicago Marathon in October 2017 and in the Honolulu Marathon in 2012.