The new 2026-2027 board slate retained broker directors Ma. Vivian Yuchengco and Eddie Gobing, while only Wilson Sy disappeared from the broker bloc despite the regulator’s aggressive reform push.
The SEC’s final circular allowed incumbent broker directors affected by the new limits to finish their current terms and still run in the next two annual elections, softening what was initially seen as a more immediate board shake-up.
The PSE holds its annual meeting on July 4 this year.
Cooling-off risk
Yuchengco has board ties dating back to the 1990s, while Gobing has remained part of the PSE leadership structure since the early 2000s.
That transition relief effectively gives Yuchengco and Gobing more time on the board despite both already exceeding the SEC’s new 10-year cumulative service cap for broker directors.
Diosdado M. Arroyo’s nomination could draw closer scrutiny because he appears to be entering a sixth straight year as broker director despite the SEC’s new mandatory one-year cooling-off rule after five consecutive years of service.
Quiet board shift
The PSE also quietly shifted chair Jose T. Pardo from independent director to regular director after serving in that role since 2011, a move that effectively shields one of the exchange’s most influential figures from the SEC’s stricter tenure limits.
The stricter independent-director rules capped cumulative service at nine years.
The PSE also heeded the SEC’s push for broader sector representation and deeper investment banking, technology and international market expertise on the board.
New nominee-directors include Eduardo Francisco, president of BDO Capital & Investment Corp., the biggest Philippine investment bank, and Lorenzo Andres Roxas, a longtime Philippine brokerage executive and former head of Maybank ATR Kim Eng Securities.
The other new nominees were Jikyeong Kang, president and dean of the Asian Institute of Management, and Niek Johan van Veen, a regional AI and digital transformation executive at Thinking Machines Data Science.
The rest of the slate retained president and CEO Ramon S. Monzon, independent directors Peter Favila and Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, investor-sector director Jose Arnulfo Veloso, issuer-sector director Marilyn Victorio-Aquino, former transportation secretary Jaime Bautista, businesswoman Cecile Ang and broker director Anthony Te.
—Edited by Miguel R. Camus
