• Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed lawmaker Ralph Recto as finance chief, shaking up his economic team for the first time since taking office in 2022.
• A deputy speaker at the House of Representatives before he agreed to head the finance department, Recto will take his oath on Friday, presidential communications chief Cheloy Garafil said in a statement, confirming an earlier media report. Recto, 60, is poised to succeed Benjamin Diokno.
• It wasn’t immediately clear why Diokno will be replaced and Marcos’s communications office didn’t provide a reason. But there was widespread speculation for months that Recto would take over Diokno’s post, which became more pronounced after Recto joined Marcos’s delegation to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November. Diokno, who as finance secretary also sat in the central bank’s policy-setting Monetary Board, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.