Philippines Economic Update Development Dialogues: Safe Water and Sanitation for All

Secretary Manuel Manligas Bonoan has been in public service for most of his life, having started his career as a Civil Engineering Aide in 1966 of the then Bureau of Public Highways under Ministry of Public Works, Transportation and Communication during his senior year in Civil Engineering at the Mapua Institute of Technology. 

After he passed the Civil Engineering Licensure Examination in 1967, he was promoted as Junior Civil Engineer. He also distinguished himself as a licensed Environmental Planner after passing the Environmental Planning Board Exam in 1995. He acquired his graduate diploma in Highway Engineering at the University of South Wales in Sydney, Australia in 1976. 

Rooted on his very impressive experience, he moved to the private sector upon his service retirement in June 2010, and became President and Chief Executive Officer of SMC Tollways, the infrastructure arm of San Miguel Corporation that handles the construction, management, and operation of the country’s largest infrastructure network namely Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx), South Luzon Expressway (SLEx), Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (STAR) Tollway, NAIA Expressway and the Metro Manila Skyway. 

With his uncommon dedication to engineering competence and professional integrity, he was drawn back into the public service by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to lead the new administration’s infrastructure program and carry out the challenge to ‘Build Better More” to enhance the living condition of the Filipino people. 

Dr. Ndiamé Diop, from Senegal, is since July 2020 the World Bank Country Director for Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. In this capacity, he leads the bank’s high-level strategic dialogue and the institution’s financial and technical/advisory programs in Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. 

Prior to his current role, Dr. Diop was for 4 years the head of the Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment unit for East Asia and the Pacific, based in Jakarta and Bangkok. In this role, he oversaw the bank’s 30-plus country economists working in East Asia and the Pacific region and provided advisory and technical support to high-level officials on key macro, fiscal, trade and growth-enhancing reforms mainly in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, PNG and the Pacific Island countries. 

Dr. Diop was also for 4 years the World Bank Lead Economist for Indonesia. In this role, he led the overall economic policy dialogue, advisory and development policy lending work in Indonesia. Prior to relocating to Jakarta in 2012, Dr. Diop held lead economist roles for Jordan and Lebanon, country economist roles in the Middle East and North Africa and was the Bank’s Resident Representative for Tunisia in 2007-2010. He joined the World Bank in Washington DC as a Young Professional in 2000. 

As economist, Dr. Diop has published in peer reviewed Journals and books on fiscal policy and growth, monetary policy and inflation, macro policies and resilience to sudden stops in capital inflows, the impacts of trade liberalization in developing countries, natural resource abundance, Dutch disease, and diversification.

Ralph van Doorn is the senior country economist for the World Bank in the Philippines, focusing on the macroeconomy and supporting reforms to improve the quality of fiscal policy and the investment climate. He has worked with governments in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mongolia and has worked with other countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.  

Prior to joining the World Bank he worked at Credit Suisse in London. He holds a Master of Research degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Master of Science degree in Applied Physics from Delft University of Technology. 

Ma. Fiorella (Lala) Fabella joined the World Bank in September 2020 as a Senior Water Supply and Sanitation Specialist.  She is based in the Manila Office.  

Prior to joining the Bank, Lala occupied senior management positions with private water companies in the Philippines for more than 20 years. She has worked on regulation, business development, wastewater projects and operations, and program management. 

Lala holds an MSc in Environmental Science in Civil Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BSc in Biology from University of the Philippines at Los Baños.

Dr. Carlos Primo C. David is a licensed geologist, Professor of Geology and Environmental Science and University Scientist of UP Diliman. He is currently the Undersecretary for Integrated Environmental Science of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. 

Dr. David was on secondment from 2015 to 2017 to the DOST where he concurrently served as Executive Director of DOST-PCIEERD Innovation Council and Officer-in-Charge of the DOST Philippine Nuclear Research Institute. More recently, he was the Chairperson of the National Panel of Technical Experts (NPTE) of the Climate Change Commission (2018-2021). 

He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Geology from Stanford University in 2003.

Dr. Andres N. Lubid served as Executive Assistant II and Municipal Administrator during the initial term of Mayor Marisa Red-Martinez's administration from 2017 to 2019, and was subsequently appointed Municipal Administrator, assuming office from 1 July 2022 to present.

Before this, Andy was in Sales Administration, Regulatory Affairs and Training and Development.

Andy earned a Ph.D. in Management with the highest academic honors with his dissertation on The Annual Collection of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the General Appropriations Act: A Strategic Analysist; Subsequently, pursued the Ed.D. in Curriculum Development and Management at the Marinduque State College with his dissertation on The Implementation of Tri-focalization in Philippine Education and its Implications to Quality, Accessibility, and Relevance in Urban (Lucena City) and Rural (The Province of Marinduque) Areas in Region IV: A Strategic Analysis.

He has a Master's degree in Business Administration, a Bachelor of Laws degree, Bachelor of Science in Management, and Bachelor of Science in Education major in English.

Cristina Isabelle Panlilio Alejandro, or “Criselle” for short, is President of Balibago Waterworks System, Inc. (BWSI) She graduated with Honorable Mention from the Ateneo de Manila University in 2002 with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications. She also holds a Masters in Business Administration from both ESSEC University and Mannheim University.

She began her career with a one year and a half stay at the Office of Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo during the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. She then moved to become the Assistant General Manager of Rajo Laurel Enterprises and House of Laurel, Inc. for four years.

She commenced work with Balibago Waterworks in 2008 as the Admin and Organizational Manager, then shifted into Business Development Manager in 2011. She was promoted to Managing Director in 2012 to handle the day-to-day operations of the business. In 2017, she assumed the role of Senior Vice-President, a position responsible for planning and execution of the strategic direction of the company in the present and for the future of the business. In June 2022, former President Cristino L. Panlilio retired thus turning over the Presidency to Criselle. Having worked closely with her predecessor over a 15-year period, Criselle continues his dream of creating a company that is “built to last” but also has her own aims for Balibago Waterworks to become a leading force in uplifting the lives of its customers through innovative and sustainable water solutions.

Jemima (Jema) Sy is an infrastructure specialist with 18 years of experience implementing and managing investment and advisory projects, with expertise in water and urban infrastructure finance and PPPs.  She has extensive experience in Asia and Africa and have worked in the Middle East and Latin America.  

She is a lead infrastructure PPP specialist in the World Bank’s Singapore Office that oversees the PPP Group’s work in East and South Asia, the Pacific and Europe and Central Asia.  

Her thought-leadership focuses on PPP institutions, local private sector and water markets development.  In 2022, she co-authored a series of practice notes on Assessing the Impacts of COVID-19 on Operational PPPs that was based on assistance provided by Jema and team to ten countries to help them navigate the fiscal and commercial issues arising from PPPs during the pandemic.

Jema is a Philippine national. She completed her Master of Law at the University of Melbourne, Australia with a focus on finance. 

Ms. Maria Angelica Sotomayor is the World Bank’s  Water Practice Manager for the East Asia and Pacific Region, based in Singapore. She is responsible for overseeing the Bank’s policy dialogue and a growing portfolio of over US$ 3 billion in the water resources management, irrigation, water supply and sanitation sectors in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Korea, Lao PDR. Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pacific Islands (Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federal States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu), Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Viet Nam.

Ms. Sotomayor joined the Bank in 1996 and since then she has had a number of leadership and managerial positions including Water Practice Manager for Eastern and Southern Africa and for the Water Global Programs Unit; Lead Economist in the Africa Urban and Disaster Risk Management Unit; Sector Leader for Sustainable Development in Haiti and the Caribbean Country Management Units.  She has over 25 years of experience in development policy dialogue and in the design, appraisal, and implementation of investment projects in water and sanitation, water resources management, irrigation and urban infrastructure in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.