New CHEd commissioner named

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced the appointment of Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) Secretariat former director Ethel Agnes Pascua-Valenzuela as the new commissioner of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).

Valenzuela will serve the unexpired term of Dr. Jo Mark Libre, until 21 July 2025, who was dismissed from the service upon the implementation of the order of the Office of the Ombudsman.

The appointment papers were signed by the President on 18 April 2024.

The newly-minted commissioner has over twenty years of professional experience in higher education as a faculty member and administrator in internationally recognized higher education institutions such University of the Philippines and De La Salle University, and in transnational education and internationalization.

Prior to her appointment, Valenzuela served as UNESCO Education Commissioner from 2003 to 2010 and as one of the Governing Board members UNESCO’s Centre for Lifelong Learning and Institute for Statistics.

She also served as the ASEAN Education Advisor on the Future of Education since April 2023, providing overall leadership in ASEAN Secretariat’s Future of Education Trend Reports and Policy Briefs covering Educational Transformation, Digitalization, Teacher Education, Education for Sustainable Development and Inclusive Education for ASEAN 2050.

Valenzuela brought recognition to the country for being the First Filipina to become appointed as the director of the SEAMEO Secretariat.