GERONIMO L. SY is an Assistant Secretary of the Department of Justice. He heads the Planning and Management Service in charge of the justice sector reform agenda among other functions.

He was a career State Prosecutor before his appointment. The major cases he handled include: Multitel/Baladjay pyramiding scam, Dacer-Corbito double murder, Esperat media killing, Fort Bonifacio coup, and the conviction of the first terrorism (Rizal Day bomber Al-Ghozi) and the first cybercrime (Office of the President hacking) cases. He was lead prosecutor for various task forces on terrorism, business fraud, corruption and human trafficking and presided over the e-Government Task Force on Cybercrime and Cybersecurity.

He was the DOJ representative to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines –National Democratic (GRP-NDF) Monitoring Committee. In addition, he was Special Prosecutor for Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Foreign Currencies and the Bureau of Immigration.
He chaired the Senate Sub-Committee on Anti-trust and Competition Policy and serves as member of the Supreme Court Committee on the Revision of the Rules of Court, Sub-Committees on Criminal Procedure and E-Commerce.

He is a recognized expert in technology law and competition law. He represented the DOJ at the APEC IP Expert Group Seminar on Cybercrime and Intellectual Property, presenter at the APEC Training Course on Competition Policy Abuse of Dominant Position – Monopolization and Government Speaker at the ABA-Libertas Forum: Balancing State Rights and Individual Liberties in 2005. He was also a Country Speaker to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Southeast Asian Hearing on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights held in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2006. He was a Panel Speaker at the Council of Europe (COE) Convention on Cybercrime held in Strasbourg, France in 2008 and 2009. He represented the DOJ in the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime Expert Groups Meeting on Cybercrime in 2010 and 2011.

In 2003, he was invited to the International Visitor’s Program (IVP) in Washington, D.C. for a comparative study of U.S. and R.P. Judicial Systems. He finished an International Law Fellowship with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Thailand in 2005 and was a United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (UNAFEI)-Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) scholar on Criminal Justice Response to Corruption in Tokyo,Japan in 2008.

Assistant Secretary Sy obtained his degrees on B.S. Management Engineering and Juris Doctor from the Ateneo de Manila University. He attended the University of the Philippines where he received his Masters in Public Management (MPM) degree in 2004. Currently, he is a candidate for Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) at the University of the Philippines, National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG).
He did his law thesis on protecting Internationally Well-Known Trademarks in 1995. In 2001, he published his first book titled E-Commerce Act of the Philippines (Rex Bookstore). He wrote his masteral paper on Controlling Corruption in Government – Proposal for Instituting an Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) in the Philippines. Since then, he has published Foundations of Prosecution – A History of the Department of Justice (Lawyer’s Review 2004), Rethinking the Five Pillars of the Criminal Justice System: From Theory to Practice (Philippine Journal of Public Administration, University of the Philippines 2005), The Case for Human Rights Democracy: University in Particularity, Beyond Borders (Liberal Philippines, Inc. 2006) and Here I Stand: The End of the Republic (Manila Times, Inc. 2007). His research interest covers criminal justice, corruption studies and administrative theory.

Academically, Asec Sy is professor of law and a lecturer in criminal law, criminal procedure, technology law and cybercrime, competition policy, corporate governance, risk management and financial laws. He writes a weekly opinion page column with the Manila Times, Inc., maintains a blog (mabinihall.com <http://mabinihall.com/> ) and acts as resource person for the public service radio program Batas Barangay over DZRH.