Arsenio Balisacan

Arsenio Molina Balisacan (born November 8, 1957) is a Filipino economist and academic who has served as the first secretary of economy, planning, and development, under President Bongbong Marcos since 2025. Balisacan headed his department's predecessor, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), from May 2012 to January 2016 under the Benigno Aquino III administration. He then served under the Duterte administration as the Chairperson of the Philippine Competition Commission from February 1, 2016, to June 30, 2022. He was again appointed as NEDA Secretary under the Bongbong Marcos administration. During his first term in 2012, he concurrently served as NEDA Secretary and as Chairman of the Boards of the Philippine Statistics Authority, Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Philippine Center for Economic Development, and Public-Private Partnership Center.

Prior to his Cabinet appointment, Balisacan served as both Professor and Dean of the School of Economics at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UP) while he was running the Philippine Center for Economic Development as its executive director. He additionally served as the Director-Chief Executive of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), during a period of secondment from the university.

Balisacan also served as a research fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu and an economist at the World Bank in Washington, DC prior to joining the UP faculty in 1987. As a PhD in economics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Balisacan is a renowned academician of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) since 2008.