The World Bank has extended its congratulations to Executive Director Rowena Candice M. Ruiz on her re-appointment as the first Director General of the Government Procurement Policy Board – Technical Support Office (GPPB-TSO), recognizing her longstanding leadership in advancing a more transparent, efficient, and accountable public procurement system in the Philippines since October 2018.

In a congratulatory letter, World Bank Division Director Zafer Mustafaoğlu acknowledged Director General Ruiz’s leadership in strengthening public procurement through transparency, innovation, digital transformation, and institutional reform, both as Executive Director of the GPPB-TSO and as Undersecretary-designate for Procurement and Finance Oversight in the Department of Education. The World Bank likewise expressed confidence that her leadership will help accelerate reforms that strengthen digital procurement, improve value for money, and reinforce public trust in government institutions.

The World Bank also pledged its commitment to continue supporting the GPPB-TSO under Director General Ruiz’s leadership as the agency advances the implementation of the New Government Procurement Act (Republic Act No. 12009) and its broader public procurement modernization agenda.

The recognition further reflects the longstanding partnership between Director General Ruiz and the World Bank, which began in 2019 through the Methodology for Assessing Procurement Systems, a comprehensive assessment of the Philippine public procurement system that informed subsequent procurement reforms. Since then, the World Bank has remained one of the GPPB-TSO’s key development partners, providing technical assistance for transformative initiatives, including the GPPB Observers Portal, procurement professionalization, Beneficial Ownership Disclosure, Green Public Procurement, procurement analytics, and other digital governance reforms. Together, these initiatives have supported Director General Ruiz’s vision, championed since 2018, of building a proactive, responsive, agile, innovative, sustainable, and efficient (PRAISE) public procurement system that delivers greater transparency, accountability, and value for the Filipino people.

#WeMakeThingsHappen #GovernmentProcurementPH