Francisco reappointed as SEC commissioner (Sabong News)

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Associate Commissioner Commissioner Javey Paul D. Francisco has been reappointed and is expected to continue to steer the agency’s initiatives toward improving the ease of doing business in the country. First appointed as SEC commissioner in 2018, Francisco supervises the Commission’s Company Registration and Monitoring Department (CRMD) and Human Resource and Administrative Department, as well as the nine SEC Extension Offices located in Bacolod, Baguio, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Davao, Legazpi, Iloilo, Tarlac, and Zamboanga. Francisco is a homegrown talent of the SEC, having served the Commission for more than 20 years. He started out as Securities Counsel I in 2001 and later named director of the SEC Davao Extension Office in 2007. Atty. Francisco holds a Bachelor of Arts, major in Philosophy, from the Ateneo de Davao University. He earned his law degree from the same university in 1995, and was admitted to the bar in 1996. He then completed a Masters in Management degree from the University of the Philippines Mindanao in 2005, and was granted Career Executive Service Eligibility in 2010. Francisco started his professional career as a lawyer at the Angara Abello Conception Regala and Cruz Law Offices for four years before entering government service through the Office of the Ombudsman for Mindanao. As supervising commissioner of the CRMD, Atty. Francisco played a key role in the crafting of guidelines that operationalize the Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines. The Commission has released, among others, SEC Memorandum Circular No. 16, Series of 2020, which relaxed the requirements for company registration by allowing incorporators to authenticate articles of incorporation instead of having them notarized or consularized; SEC Memorandum Circular No. 22, Series of 2020, which provided the guidelines on the amendment of corporate terms; and SEC Memorandum Circular No. 7, Series of 2019, which provided for the establishment of one person corporations. Together with the SEC Information and Communications Technology Department, the CRMD also successfully transitioned to a zero face-to-face setup under the supervision of Francisco. To make company registration and regulatory compliance more efficient and convenient for the public, the SEC launched the Electronic Simplified Processing of Application for Registration of Companies (eSPARC); the Electronic System for Payments to the SEC (eSPAYSEC); and the Electronic Filing and Submission Tool (eFAST), among others. The Commission’s programs toward the ease of doing business has been recognized by both local and international bodies, including the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission who in 2019 cited the SEC’s implementation of an online registration system for minimizing the window for red tape, thereby curtailing corruption in government. The SEC also helped push the Philippines’ ranking in the World Bank’s 2020 Doing Business Report to 95 in 2020 from 124 in 2019, with a score of 62.8 from 57.68. The World Bank cited the SEC’s initiatives to implement the RCC, particularly in removing the minimum capital requirement for domestic companies, as being a key factor in the improved ranking. The World Bank further cited the Commission’s implementation of greater disclosure requirements for transactions with interested parties and director liability for transactions with interested parties for promoting the protection of minority investors. For contributing the most number of reforms considered in the World Bank report, the Anti-Red Tape Authority recognized the SEC as a “Doing Business Competitiveness Ranking Mover,” as well as a “Big Impact Indicator” for its measures toward protecting minority investors and “Most Improved Indicator” of ease of doing business.