Janet Abuel

Janet Braganza Abuel (born March 13, 1971) is a Filipino lawyer, accountant and public servant who, on March to August 2019, was acting secretary of the Department of Budget and Management following the appointment of former-Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Abuel was born on March 13, 1971 in Dagupan, Pangasinan, the fourth of seven children of Miguel and Fausta Abuel. She went to Dominican School in Dagupan for her elementary and secondary schooling.

From 1987 to 1991, she attended Saint Louis University in Baguio City where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Commerce degree major in accounting. She passed the certified public accountant examinations in 1991.

For her post graduate studies, she attended Baguio Colleges Foundation (currently known as the University of the Cordilleras) where she earned a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1998. A single working mother, she attended night school from 5 to 8 p.m. after office work. In the 1998 bar examinations, she placed first with a 91.80% rating, becoming the first bar topnotcher of the university.

From 2004 to 2005, she went to Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy under a scholarship and earned a Master's degree in public policy. She was also awarded a certificate of completion in 2014 from the John F. Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University where she attended the Executive Education Program on Driving Government Performance.

Abuel first started her career as a new accounts clerk at the Makati branch of BPI Family Bank from 1993 to 1994. In 1995, she was an accounting clerk of the Baguio Sub-Regional Office of the Home Development Mutual Fund. In 1996, she was an accountant of the Sto. Niño Jesus Medical Center in Baguio. Abuel was also a part-time instructor at the University of the Cordilleras College of Law from 1999 to 2010 and authored the handbook Bar Review Methods and Techniques, 2003 Edition.

Department of Budget & Management

Abuel started working at the DBM in 1996 as a budget analyst of the department's Cordillera Administrative Region regional office in Baguio City. Up until 1999, she was still in the regional office becoming a budget specialist in 1998 and a senior budget specialist in July 1999. A month later, in August, Abuel was promoted to being the director of the budget department's legal and legislative service. She was personally offered the position by then-DBM Secretary Benjamin Diokno after he learned that she had topped the bar. She then became the regional director, in 2002, of DBM's Ilocos Region office in San Fernando, La Union.

After serving for about a decade in the regional office, she was appointed by then-President Benigno Aquino III as assistant secretary of the department, replacing Ruby U. Alvarez. As assistant secretary, Abuel handled assignments of assisting the Undersecretary for Operations in the supervision of the bureau in charge of policy formulation and concerns of local government units (LGUs), the Project Management Office on LGU Public Financial Management, and other local and regional concerns, including overseeing the DBM Regional Offices.

For a period, she took the reins of the Corporate Affairs Group, particularly supervising the Administrative Service, and the Financial and Management Service of the DBM. She also directly supervised the Department Legislative Liaison Office in Congress (House of Representatives and Senate). From 2012 to October 2015, she had been the chair of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) of the department.

She became an undersecretary in March 2015. As undersecretary, she was designated to head the establishment of the Office of the Comptroller General, and oversee the bureau in charge of policy formulation and concerns of LGUs, the PMO on LGU PFM, and other local and regional concerns, and supervise the DBM Regional Offices.

Following the death of BSP Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. in February 2019, then-Secretary Diokno was appointed to serve his unexpired term. After that, Abuel was named officer-in-charge of the department. In a cabinet meeting held on April 2019, President Duterte "verbally" appointed Abuel as acting secretary amid the 45-day appointment ban ahead of the 2019 Philippine general election.

• 1999 DBM Sariling Sikap Awards
• Ten Outstanding Citizens of Baguio CIty