JB Jovy C. Bernabe is a graduate of law and business economics, courses whose key disciplines – rules and allocative efficiency – he weaves into his work very faithfully as he carries out duties and responsibilities in both the government and the private sectors.

Prior to becoming PCIC president, Atty. Bernabe has held various government positions.  From 1999 to 2000, he served as the Deputy Executive Director of the National Agricultural and Fishery Council (NAFC), an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture.  For exemplary performance, he headed that same agency, from 2000 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2004, as its Executive Director.  Atty. Bernabe also served as Board Secretary of the Sugar Regulatory Administration in 1998-2001.

In 2008, he was appointed to the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation.  Immediately, he set out to reinvigorate the then lethargic corporation.  He focused on bringing back the enthusiasm and dynamism of its workforce through various motivational human resource development programs.   He set out to generate additional resources for the corporation from government and non-government sources.   He energized agency relationships with farmer and fisherfolk cooperatives,    corporate lenders, and other credit providers.  He established relationship with donor agencies for the development of innovative weather-indexed insurance products.

He motivated employees to work for ISO certification that involved establishing clear systems and procedures in the delivery of the agency’s products and services.   The agency gained the feat in 2011.

Atty. Bernabe has put the PCIC and crop insurance in the mainstream discourse on agriculture and fisheries development.  Today, the agency and the products and services it delivers are considered as key, even indispensable, ingredients in inclusive agriculture and fisheries development.  National and local government units are tapping its services not only for their institutional requirements, but more importantly, for their stakeholders and constituents.

President Bernabe was born in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental on June 24, 1970. He studied elementary and high school in La Salle Bacolod, graduating with distinction (honorable mention) in both levels.  He finished Business Economics in 1991, and then law in 1996, both at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

After passing the bar, he worked as an Associate in the law firm of Quasha Ancheta Pena and Nolasco. He was a Commissioner on Bar Discipline for two (2) years,  and Governor for Western Visayas of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines from 2005 – 2007. He was a founding partner of the Escueta Regalado Atienza Mendoza and Bernabe Law Offices, and was a Professorial Lecturer in the New Era University College of Law from 2001- 2005.  He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees and Corporate Secretary of the Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association – Center for Training and Research in Agricultural Banking, Inc.

Atty. Bernabe holds a Certificate from the Academy of American and International Law in Dallas, Texas, USA.  He participated in the APEC Seminar on Commercial Laws and was sent to study Grain Procurement Management for Importers in the Northern Crops Institute of North Dakota State University.

He is married to Cristina Alonso of Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental and has three (3) children:  Francesca Isabel, Gian Niccolo and Juan Fernando.