Benjamin E. Diokno was appointed as a full-time Member of the Monetary Board for a six-year term effective 12 January 2024, after having served as Secretary of the Department of Finance from July 2022 to January 2024.

Within his first month in office as Finance Chief, he led the crafting of the Philippines’ first-ever Medium-Term Fiscal Framework to help the country achieve three main objectives: reduce the deficit-to-GDP ratio to pre-pandemic levels, achieve upper middle-income status by 2025, and bring down poverty incidence to single digits by the end of the President’s term.

Prior to his appointment as Secretary of Finance, he served as Governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) from 2019 to 2022. Under his leadership, the BSP was among the first to respond to the pandemic and deploy decisive measures to cushion the adverse impact of the pandemic and pave the road to recovery. In 2022, he was named Global and Asia-Pacific Central Banker of the Year by The Banker, an international finance publication owned by Financial Times, in recognition of his leadership of the BSP through the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to advance the modernization of the country’s banking system.

Before taking charge of monetary affairs, he served as Budget Secretary under three presidents (Corazon Aquino, Joseph Estrada, and Rodrigo Duterte) where he pursued an expansionary fiscal policy to finance investments in human capital development and public infrastructure.

He is Professor Emeritus of the University of the Philippines Diliman. Over more than 40 years, he taught Public Sector Economics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Development Economics, and Special Topics (Public Enterprises Investment and Pricing Policies; Public Sector Reforms; Local Government Finance). He was also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (City University of Manila).

He finished his Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration (1968) and Master’s Degree in Public Administration (1970) and Economics (1974) at the University of the Philippines. He holds an M.A. in Political Economy (1976) from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA and a Ph.D. in Economics (1981) degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University in New York, USA. In 2017, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of the Philippines—the highest academic rank and honor conferred by the University.