Yuchengco, Lim remain friends despite legal battle

Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!

Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Visit Suniway.ph to learn

October 21, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine Stock Exchange director Ma. Vivian Yuchengco maintains that she and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairperson Francis Lim remain friends despite their ongoing legal battle.

The two officials shared a conversation with tycoon Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala yesterday during the listing ceremony of GCash parent Mynt Inc. at the PSE.

“I said, don’t worry, Jaime Augusto. We’re friends, even if I’m suing him, right, Francis? Then he (Lim) said, yeah, mahal ko ito,” Yuchengco said.

Yuchengco said the lawsuit is “nothing personal,” which is why she can talk about it.

Yuchengco and another longtime PSE broker-director, Eddie Gobing, have brought their opposition to the SEC’s 10-year term limit for broker directors to court.

Yuchengco and Gobing have asked the court to stop enforcing SEC Memorandum Circular 17, Series of 2026, issued in May.

The petition filed before the Court of Appeals seeks to declare the circular unconstitutional for violating the petitioners’ rights to due process and equal protection, and void for being contrary to the Securities Regulation Code and the Revised Corporation Code.

Yuchengco said she had earlier warned Lim that she would sue if the SEC pursued its policy on broker-director term limits.

“I told him I would sue him. I told him, do not pass that rule of yours because I’ll have to sue you,” Yuchengco said.

“You cannot deprive a shareholder of sitting on his own board. I am not an independent director. I am a founding member of the stock market, and my shares are original,” she added.

Yuchengco continued: “Can you deprive me of that? Can you deprive Jaime Augusto from sitting in Ayala? You cannot deprive the Sy’s from sitting in their board. You cannot. That’s a shareholder’s right.”

Lim earlier expressed disappointment that, despite the SEC providing a reasonable two-year transition period to implement the reform following extensive consultations, it now has to defend it in court.

Under the circular, a broker-director may be elected for a one-year term, subject to a maximum cumulative period of 10 years, whether consecutive or intermittent, in the same exchange.

After serving a cumulative term of five years, whether consecutive or intermittent, the broker-director will observe a one-year cooling-off period before being eligible for reelection.

To ease the transition, the SEC is providing incumbent broker-directors a two-year transition period.

As such, incumbent broker-directors who would have been otherwise disqualified or required to undergo cooling-off by reason of the cumulative years of service as such, at the time of the circular’s effectivity will be allowed to complete their current term.

“He thought the two years were good enough. But it’s not the two years. It’s the principle of being a shareholder. When you’re a shareholder, it’s forever; you can sit at the board,” Yuchengco said.

“I’m protecting everybody. I’m protecting all the shareholders. My lawsuit is for everybody, not for me alone,” she said.