President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has appointed Emilio Benito Aquino as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He replaces Teresita Herbosa, whose seven-year term ended in March.

Aquino is an SEC stalwart, having served there between 1993 and 2005 in various senior positions. He was the head of the SEC's Davao Extension Office and its Zamboanga Extension Office. He later became the director of the Prosecution and Enforcement Department, then the director of the Non-Traditional Securities and Instruments Department and director of the Compliance and Enforcement Department.
 
In December 2016, Duterte appointed Aquino as an SEC commissioner to replace Manuel Huberto Gaite, whose term had ended. Critics of the commission believe that there should only be three commissioners at the top of the pyramid instead of five. One reason for this is that the normal Philippine courts took over the SEC's judicial duties at the beginning of the century; the US SEC, on which it is modelled, still has its own private court that uses 'in-house judges'' to enforce investor protection laws. In 2016 the Philippines' Commission on Audit stated that Herbosa was paid 8.34 million pesos (US$157,183). The new appointee's pay is unknown.

Aquino is a lawyer who also earnt an accounting degree at the University of Zamboanga, passing his exam with a rating of 89.14% to become a certified public accountant. He finished his law studies in 1972 at the San Beda College of Law, now San Beda University, where president-to-be Duterte also obtained a law degree in the same year. It is quite possible that they met and struck up a friendship.