Candice Iyog of Cebu Pacific, Lizelle G. Maralag of GMA Network, and Neil Trinidad of GCash join Asia-Pacific’s top 50 marketers.
Three Filipino marketing leaders have earned spots on one of the region’s most prestigious industry recognitions, with Campaign Asia-Pacific publishing its 2026 Asia-Pacific Power List on May 29.
The annual list spotlights the region’s most influential and purposeful marketers, presented in partnership with DoubleVerify, and spans 12 markets including the Philippines. All three Filipino honorees are listed as new members for 2026, with the exception of GCash’s Neil Trinidad, who has been on the list since 2023.
Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific
As CMO and customer experience officer of Cebu Pacific, Iyog has spent over two decades building the airline from a scrappy low-cost challenger into a dominant carrier in the Philippines. The results speak for themselves: in 2025, the airline’s brand value surged 86%, making it the fastest-growing Filipino brand according to Brand Finance, while it amassed a record 27 million passengers and grew both domestic and international market share.
To drive that growth, Iyog restructured Cebu Pacific’s marketing organization from a channel-and-geography model into an audience-first setup, with distinct teams for brand, domestic, and international markets, all backed by a centralized marketing operations hub for data, technology, and CRM.
The creative output under her watch has been notably culturally rooted. The “Discover Philippine Weaves: QR Flight Codes” campaign printed scannable QR codes onto traditional Filipino textiles and displayed them in airports, along major avenues, and in magazines — scanning them linked travelers to indigenous weaving communities, connecting a flight promotion directly to cultural tourism. For Cebu Pacific’s 30th anniversary in 2026, the airline moved decisively away from fare-led promotions toward storytelling rooted in Filipino culture, launching a brand film titled “Si Cebie at Ako” following an aspiring flight attendant through setbacks and persistence, and “The Dreamer Plane,” a custom Airbus A321neo livery designed with Cebuano artist duo Happy Garaje.
Beyond campaigns, Iyog has championed diversity and inclusion within the aviation industry. She was a key proponent of Cebu Pacific becoming the first Philippine carrier to hire transgender flight attendants, and oversaw the airline becoming the first Philippine carrier to complete a full Gender Equality Assessment under the GEARS framework.
Lizelle G. Maralag, GMA Network
Widely regarded as a media icon in the Philippines and known affectionately within the industry as LGM, Lizelle G. Maralag brings three decades of influential experience across advertising and media to her role as Chief Marketing Officer of GMA Network Inc.
A former country managing director for Starcom MediaVest Philippines and chair of Publicis Groupe in the country, she joined GMA as its first woman marketing leader in 2010 and has since helped steer the broadcaster through a sweeping transformation. Maralag has pushed audience personalization tools and data-led storytelling techniques while extending GMA’s commercial partnerships, better integrating advertisers across platforms and expanding branded content offerings.
The results of that transformation are visible in both ratings and reach. GMA is now the dominant player on YouTube among media businesses in the Philippines, boasting more than five billion annual views, with similar leadership positions on Facebook and TikTok. In 2025, GMA celebrated its 75th anniversary by being named TV Station of the Year at the Platinum Stallion National Media Awards, while Maralag herself received the Media Icon award from the Media Specialists Association of the Philippines.
Neil Trinidad, GCash
As Chief Marketing Officer and integration leader of GCash, Neil Trinidad has continued to push the Philippines’ leading cashless network beyond its payments roots, using inventive, trust-led marketing and real-world use cases to embed the super-app more deeply into everyday Filipino life.
Among his recent initiatives, Trinidad helped launch GCash for Business, which now serves more than six million stores and individual online merchants accepting digital payments, and GCash Overseas, which allows Filipino workers in 16 countries to send instant remittances back home.
His team’s marketing approach is known for striking a balance between utility and wit. An “earworm” campaign built around 80s tunes helped drive awareness of the app’s free hospitalization insurance, while a partnership with boyband SB19 saw the group launch customizable GCash Visa cards. On the security front, the “Entertainingly Serious” campaign combating SMS spoofing contributed to an 80% reduction in scam reports and helped GCash achieve an Ipsos Net Trust Score of 90%, double the global sector average. The campaign also garnered 17 local and regional awards, including Masters of Media at the 2025 YouTube Works Southeast Asia Awards — a first for a Philippine business.
Trinidad has appeared on the Power List since 2023, and despite GCash now counting eight out of 10 Filipinos among its users with active user numbers seven times higher than its nearest rival, he has shown no signs of slowing down.
Philippine Marketing On The Regional Stage
The recognition of three Filipino marketers in a single edition of the APAC Power List underscores the growing influence of Philippine brands and marketing talent on the regional stage. Across aviation, broadcast media, and fintech, Iyog, Maralag, and Trinidad represent distinct but equally compelling models of marketing leadership — one anchored in cultural storytelling, another in platform transformation, and a third in trust-led digital adoption. Their collective presence on a list spanning 12 Asia-Pacific markets signals that the Philippines is no longer simply a growth market to watch, but a source of ideas and leadership worth learning from.