Profile of Secretary Bernadette T. Romulo-Puyat, Department of Tourism

Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat earned her bachelor and masteral degrees in Economics from the University of the Philippines. She served her alma mater as a lecturer from 1994 to 2006, and was an Economic Consultant at the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) from 2001 to 2005 and at the Presidential Management Staff from 2005 to 2006. She served as Deputy Cabinet Secretary at the Office of the President in 2006.

In 2007, she was appointed as Undersecretary for Special Concerns at the Department of Agriculture (DA), and in 2016 as Undersecretary for Agribusiness, Marketing, and Regional Engagement. During her stint in the DA, she was in charge of rural credit and headed various teams and committees in the areas of trade promotion, development assistance, international cooperation, and foreign investments. She was designated as Alternate Chair of the National Organic Agriculture Board (NOAB) and led initiatives for special sectors (women, youth, elderly, differently-able).

She also supervised market-linkage activities, promotion of local agricultural products, and the identification of investment opportunities in the agri-fishery sector. She headed the organizing teams for the conduct of DA’s TienDA Farmers and Fishermen’s Outlet, KISS ME Project, as well as the Department’s participation in Madrid Fusion Manila and Philippine Harvest, which she initiated in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

On May 2018, she was appointed as Secretary of Department of Tourism wherein her work program includes the intensification of the promotion of sustainable and responsible tourism, increase investments in the tourism sector, enhance programs on tourism infrastructure, and pursue the implementation of the Farm Tourism Act which will ultimately increase revenue streams in the countryside.