Guinigundo named BSP deputy gov

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. announced yesterday the appointment of economist Diwa C. Guinigundo, 51, as deputy governor of the BSP’s Monetary Stability Sector.

Guinigundo will be in charge of economic research, economic statistics, the center for monetary and financial policies, branch operations, loans and credits, asset management, cash department operations, as well as currency issuance and retirement.

Prior to this, he was assistant governor in charge of the Monetary Policy Sub-Sector.

The newly-appointed deputy governor is well-exposed to the real sector of the economy.

He started his public service at the Department of Labor’s National Manpower and Youth Council as senior manpower development officer and spent the next 27 years with the Philippine central bank as an economist looking after specific areas of prices and the real sector; external debt, balance of payments and international organizations; and quantitative analysis.

He was director of the BSP’s Department of Economic Research from 1994 until 2000 when he was promoted managing director.

It was during this time that the BSP started to lay the groundwork for the shift of monetary policy framework from monetary aggregates to direct inflation targeting.

The Monetary Board approved the transition in 2000 until it was formally implemented in 2002 after a series of public consultations all over the Philippines.

Guinigundo has gained extensive regional and international experience, having served as research head at the South-East Asian Central Banks Centre for Research and Training in Malaysia from 1992-1994 and as alternate executive director at the International Monetary Fund at Washington, DC from 2001-2003.

He also represented the interest of Australia, Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, Mongolia and the other Asia-Pacific island economies at the Executive Board of the Fund. In addition, he has been co-chair with Bank Negara Malaysia of the SEACEN Experts Group on Capital Flows since 1999.

He chaired the technical meetings of the ASEAN+3 that expanded the original ASEAN Swap Arrangement and established the existing Bilateral Swap Arrangement between the ASEAN countries and the +3 countries of China, Japan and Korea from 1999-2000 under the umbrella of the Chiang Mai Initiative.

He graduated at the top of his AB Economics class at the UP School of Economics in 1976, cum laude, and earned his Master of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science as a Central Bank scholar. He is married to the former April Eve L. Guerrero with whom he has two sons.