Biography

Amina Rasul-Bernardo is the President of the Philippine Center for Islam and Democracy (PCID), Trustee of The Magbassa Kita Foundation, Inc (MKFI), which focuses on adult literacy. She is a member of the Board of Regents of the Mindanao State University (MSU). She is also a Board Member of University of the Philippines Foundation, Inc. (UPFI) and a member of the Friends of Peace headed by Cardinal Orlando Quevedo, among others.

She was a member of the Philippine Cabinet under former President Fidel V. Ramos as Presidential Advisor on Youth Affairs, appointed concurrently as the first Chair of the National Youth Commission (NYC), which she organized. She has served as Commissioner of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women representing Muslims, Director of the Board of the Philippine National Oil Corporation (PNOC), the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and Founding Director of the Local Government GuaranteeCorporation (LGGC). She has been a Board Member of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), member of the National Independent Advisory and Monitoring Committee (NIAMC) for the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Conditional Cash Transfer Program, adviser to the World Bank Mindanao Jobs Report, among others. She has been a member of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) General Advisory Council, a Trustee of the National Movement for Free Elections, Vice Chair, Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation (RMAF). A columnist with the Business World, she has written and edited several books on the Mindanao conflict, Islam and democracy.

She has degrees in Economics (University of the Philippines), Masters in Business Administration (Asian Institute of Management) and Masters in Public Administration (Harvard Kennedy School for Government).

Her awards include: N-PEACE Awardee 2019, awarded by UNDP; Most Distinguished Alumna of the University of the Philippines for 2016; 2015 University of the Philippines School of Economics Alumni Association (UPSEAA) Distinguished Alumni Award. In recognition of her work to strengthen democracy, she was awarded “Muslim Democrat of the Year 2007” by the Center for Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) in Washington DC in 2007, and she is cited as one of the World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims, 2017 by the Jordan Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre.