JEROME FRONDA SISON, Ph. D.
International Economist, Teacher, Mentor, and a Very Kind & Giving Person
Written by Elvira C. Ablaza, his wife of 30 years, with contributions from Macky Dominguez, his HS classmate and tennis partner; Cristina Sison, his youngest daughter; Luigi Baluyut, his stepson; Ana Baluyut, his stepdaughter; JD Santos, his grandson; Weidong Zhou, Albab Akanda, and Lynnette Perez, retired ADB officers whom he worked with on several projects; and Lourdes Caballero, former PRIMEX staffmember
Dr. Jerome F. Sison, Jerry to family and friends, was a member of De La Salle University (DLSU) High School Class of 1966. His professional life spanned five decades of excellent economic and financial analyses of development projects financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other development partners in the Asia-Pacific region. Jerry was an outstanding economist, a very good teacher, and an excellent management consultant. His former colleagues described him as kind, humble, sincere, highly intelligent, diligent, and meticulous. To me and his children, grandchildren, and siblings, Jerry was a loving, caring, supportive, and generous Dad/Papa/Kuya who was always ready to help, took pride in our accomplishments–big and small, and encouraged us during rough and difficult times.
His Early Years
Jerry was born on 13 August 1947 in Los Baños, Laguna. He was the oldest of four children (Jerry, Cindy, Steve, and Michelle) of Jesus (Jess) Moran Sison, a landscape architect and tennis coach, and Dr. Obdulia (Dolly) Fronda-Sison, a sociologist and the first female summa cum laude graduate of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). He spent several years of his childhood under the care of his grandfather, Dr. Francisco Fronda, a National Scientist and the Father of Philippine Poultry, whom he idolized.
In his early years, he studied at the Makiling School in Los Baños, then continued the remaining years of his elementary education in Ithaca, New York, USA while his mother was pursuing her postgraduate studies at Cornell University. Upon their return to the Philippines, Jerry enrolled at De La Salle University (DLSU) in Taft Avenue, Manila where he completed his high school education in 1966.
Entering his senior year in DLSU in 1965, Jerry (as Team Captain) and his tennis partner, Macky Dominguez, played doubles and won the NCAA junior (high school) championship title for La Salle. They continued to play men’s national tournaments, with significant wins over the then current Philippine Davis Cup players in doubles. By the end of 1966, they were nationally ranked No. 3 in the men’s division – two young high schoolers playing with the big boys. What an achievement! Their No. 3 national doubles rank entitled Jerry and Macky to enter the Philippine National Open, where international players from Europe and Australia played. These players had just competed at the Australian Open and would stop by and play in Manila before proceeding to the European circuit, which included the French Open and Wimbledon. Their high national ranking also brought them an invitation to join the Philippine Davis Cup selection pool and, therefore, gave them the opportunity to train and try out for the Philippine Davis Cup team.
Jerry the Professional
After graduation from high school at DLSU, Jerry moved back to Los Baños for his undergraduate studies at the UPLB College of Agriculture. After completing his BS in Agribusiness in 1971, Jerry worked at the Private Development Corporation of the Philippines (PDCP), performing financial and economic analysis of proposed agriculture projects. Two years later, he joined the Faculty of the UPLB College of Economics and Management (CEM) as Instructor and Research Assistant and pursued graduate studies leading to an MS in Agricultural Economics, which he completed in 1976. Jerry subsequently took up postgraduate studies at the University of Manitoba in Canada under a Winrock Foundation scholarship, earning his Ph. D. in Agriculture Economics in 1983. Upon his return to UPLB from Canada, he was assigned administrative positions in addition to his professorial duties, notably as Executive Director of the Center for Policy and Development Studies (CPDS) from June 1987-June 1991 and from November 1993-October 1994. For his work in agricultural development, he was recognized by UPLB as an Outstanding Alumnus in 1994.
In 1995, Jerry retired from UPLB as Associate Professor and became fully involved in development work that spanned continents and lasted for decades. From 1995-2020, Jerry distinguished himself as an excellent project economist and finance specialist, completing 85 assignments, mostly financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), in 17 countries in Asia, including Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, two former Soviet republics in Central Asia. As an economist, he was well-versed in theory and its applications and stood at the intersection of policy and practice. He was passionate about how economic concepts can be translated into real benefits for people on the ground.
Despite all his accomplishments, Jerry remained humble and low key. Wherever he went on assignment, he showed by example that humility is not a weakness, but a strength. He shunned the spotlight and, instead, did his work quietly, choosing to stay in the background. He worked very long hours for weeks until the work was done. In one assignment in Indonesia, he closeted himself in his hotel room for several days, sleeping for only 2-3 hours each night, just so he could complete the work and submit his report to the team leader on time.
Ever the teacher, Jerry was always willing to share his expertise with national economists and financial analysts, as well as government counterparts, in his many countries of assignment. Not only that, he also willingly shared his economic and financial models with other economists who came to him asking for his advice and assistance.
ADB officers, whom Jerry worked with, remember him for “his kindness and professional achievements” and as “someone with great mental acuity and who was calm, deliberate, and ever academic in his approach to work, and at the same time, always warm and personable with everyone around him.” Weidong Zhou, a Chinese fisheries specialist, expressed his deep gratitude for “Jerry’s professional strength and efforts,” which enabled him to complete the preparation of projects in Indonesia and the Philippines. He added that Jerry’s professionalism at work and his gentlemanly manners are examples that are worth emulating. A senior Filipino education economist, Lynnette Perez, remembers how, for her very first project in ADB, she was praised during the Management Review Meeting (MRM) for the highly exceptional economic and financial analysis that was prepared by THE Jerry Sison. That was Jerry – diligent, meticulous, and ever the perfectionist, yet very humble, kind, and generous with his knowledge and expertise.
Jerry the Family Man
To his two daughters (Leah and Cristina), his stepchildren (Luigi, Miguel [deceased], and Ana), his grandsons (Jijo and JD) and stepgrandchildren (Jules, Karl, and Andi), Jerry was a kind, gentle, loving, and caring person – always guiding, always encouraging, always supporting, and always giving. His children and grandchildren are grateful to him for the support he extended to them in different forms (moral, emotional, financial), the valuable lessons that he taught them, the values they imbibed from him, and his being present for them.
JD, his grandson, said it very well, “From as simple as our hobbies, like my hip-hop dance recital back in college or my brother’s boxing matches, which the rest of the family were so worried about, to big life decisions like moving overseas on my own to study or my brother becoming a pilot – he was always there to cheer us on. Sometimes, it felt like he was more excited for us than we were for ourselves. And whether I was aware of it at the time or not, I’d like to think that his enthusiasm gave us one of those tiny pushes we needed to brave through big moments.”
Ana, his stepdaughter who donated one of her kidneys to Jerry and whom he fondly calls “bunso” (youngest child), wrote on the card she gave him on his 75th birthday, that she is “so grateful to have a father like you, who’d always have the patience to understand me, accept and love me for who I am. I am most thankful for all the priceless lessons you have taught me by your example.”
His daughter Cristina fondly recalls how Jerry enjoyed cooking and how he loved good food. When she and her sister Leah were kids, he made them a healthy diet of steak and fried chicken with gravy for Sunday dinner, and for midnight snack, he would cook garlic longanisa from Nueva Ecija and then cook fried rice in the oil and crumbs from the longanisa.
Indeed, Jerry and I were so blessed to have found each other. For 30 years, we supported each other, reinforced each other’s strengths, filled each other’s needs, took care of each other, and most of all, loved each other immeasurably and unconditionally. This love enabled us to weather the many serious health challenges that Jerry (and I) faced in the last 10 years of his life, with the final crisis developing so suddenly – and ending so swiftly – on the 19th of October 2025 at St Luke’s Medical Center Global City.
Jerry was also a father figure to the staff in PRIMEX (Pacific Rim Innovation and Management Exponents, Inc.), which grew into a leading international consulting firm that it is today with Jerry’s full support. Lourdes Caballero, a former PRIMEX staff member, said that Jerry’s encouragement, his presence, and his nurturing of the young staff, have changed her life for good through his powerful words of encouragement and his presence, nurturing, and mentoring. He also showed her that true and enduring love exists, as she witnessed how his love for “Ma’am Vi” gave meaning to his life.
Jerry is gone, but he will remain in our hearts forever. His legacy will also live on in the lives of the students he taught, the consultants and government counterparts he worked with and mentored, his children and grandchildren who have imbibed his core values of diligence, humility, sincerity, and integrity, and the many people of various nationalities whose lives he touched.