Atty. Ricardo R. Blancaflor has been sworn in as acting chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), bringing decades of experience in government management, legal affairs, and institutional reform to one of the country's most important state-run financial institutions.

Blancaflor was sworn in recently by Finance Secretary Frederick Go at the Department of Finance headquarters in Manila.

“As Acting Chair, he will guide GSIS in strengthening fund sustainability, enhancing member services, and advancing its mandate of providing responsive and reliable social insurance benefits to government employees and pensioners,” the DOF said in a social media post.

A native of Dumangas, Iloilo, Blancaflor is a veteran lawyer and public administrator best known for serving as director general of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), a position he assumed in 2010 after previously serving as an undersecretary of the Department of Justice.

During the Arroyo administration, Blancaflor oversaw legal and special concerns at the DOJ and chaired the government's anti-human trafficking council.

At IPOPHL, he spearheaded initiatives that expanded the country's intellectual property and innovation ecosystem, including the establishment of Innovation and Technology Support Offices (ITSOs), which helped universities and research institutions access and utilize patent information.

He is widely regarded as one of the key figures behind the modernization and institutional strengthening of the Philippines' intellectual property regime.