Michelle is a Philippine-qualified lawyer who specializes in equity capital market regulation. She received her Juris Doctor degree (J.D.), cum laude, from the University of Philippines College of Law as valedictorian of her 2011 class. She went on to obtain her Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the New York University (NYU) as a David Marshall scholar and National University of Singapore (NUS) where she was awarded the Rajah and Tann Tax Prize. After doing litigation and dispute resolution work in Angara Abello Concepcion Regala and Cruz Law Offices, one of the top law firms in the Philippines, she worked as the head of the legislative affairs and legal counsel for a member of the Philippine Senate. Subsequently, she became a legal consultant for the Securities and Exchange Commission where she assisted in the formulation of policies geared towards deepening the Philippine capital market and promoting investor protection. She also provided technical assistance in the development of measures aimed at integrating the Philippines in the ASEAN regional capital market framework. She was also a part-time lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila University. Her research interests include cross-border securities transactions, capital market integration, market regulation, and investor protection.
She was also a Researcher with the NUS Centre for Banking & Finance Law between 1 October 2015 to 30 September 2017.
Mapping Capital Market Integration: A Survey of Initiatives Within and Between ASEAN and Other Nations
Present capital market integration initiatives to promote a “freer flow of capital” can only be described as occurring within a spectrum of interrelationships ranging from the bilateral, coteries of countries, regional, or even individual asset classes. With all the ongoing simultaneous but fragmented attempts to integrate and liberalize, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of all the developments. Thus, the first task of this study is to map all ongoing initiatives within and between ASEAN and other nations to have integrated financial markets.
However, integration is not a simple task. Within such initiatives, there may be a resistance against going for a full scale harmonization, opting instead for mutual recognition or coordination. After mapping out all ongoing initiatives, the researcher will next identify the steps taken and complement it with an identification of related issues that arose or are expected to arise as countries move closer to greater capital market integration.
