PRESIDENT Aquino has ordered the restoration of the administrative supervision of the Department of Finance (DOF) over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), citing the need for “effective financial-sector coordination” in the midst of a “global economic crisis.”

The President authorized the transfer of SEC supervision from the Department of Trade and Industry to the DOF through Executive Order (EO) 37 dated April 19.

“It’s the prerogative of the Office of the President to transfer us. We have been transferred a number of times already,” SEC spokesman Gerard Lukban said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

In issuing EO 37, Mr. Aquino said, “Given the global economic crisis, the effective implementation of policies for a strong and stable financial system will result in a financial sector that will be able to contribute more to the economic growth and development of the country.”

“To achieve the forgoing and to ensure effective financial- sector coordination, it is necessary and desirable to restore the administrative supervision of the SEC to the DOF,” he said.

“The SEC is still an independent agency but since we deal with the capital markets, this [transfer] will come into play when they talk about fiscal and monetary policies,” Lukban said.

“We feel this will be more in line with the president’s economic policies,” he added.

Presidential Decree 902-A, or the SEC Reorganization Act of 1976, placed the SEC under the administrative supervision of the Office of the President. In 2000 EO 192 transferred SEC supervision from the Office of the President to the DOF to consolidate and coordinate the supervision of regulatory agencies dealing with financial products and services.

As result of the problems besetting the preneed industry in 2009, then-President Arroyo transferred the administrative supervision of the SEC from the DOF to the Department of Trade and Industry.