Joseph Felix Mari "Ace" Hotchkiss Durano (born April 3, 1970) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of Tourism under President

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Maria Gloria Macaraeg Macapagal-Arroyo (; born April 5, 1947), often referred to as PGMA or GMA, is a Filipino academic and politician who served as the 14th president of the Philippines from Presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, 2001 to 2010 ...

. He was also general manager of the

Philippine Tourism Authority The Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), formerly the Philippine Tourism Authority (), is an agency of the Philippine national government under the Department of Tourism responsible for implementing policies and progr ...

(PTA), being appointed by Arroyo in 2008.

Personal life

Durano was born to Ramon “Nito” Duterte Durano III, a former mayor of

Danao, Cebu Danao, officially the City of Danao (; ), is a component city in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 156,321 people. Danao is within the Metro Cebu area. Etymology According to the most po ...

who was also a second cousin of former president

Rodrigo Duterte Rodrigo Roa Duterte (, ; born March 28, 1945) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the first Philippine president from Mindanao, and is the oldest person to assum ...

Political career

He also served twice as the Representative of

Cebu Cebu ( ; ), officially the Province of Cebu (; ), is a province of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas region, and consists of a main island and 167 surrounding islands and islets. The coastal zone of Cebu is identified as a ...

's 5th congressional district: from 1998 to 2004 and from 2013 to 2016. He was one of the youngest to be elected representative to the 11th congress (1998-2001). He was an Assistant Majority Floor Leader and Vice Chairman of the Committee on Trade and Industry during that time. In the 2022 local elections, Durano challenged the incumbent governor

Gwendolyn Garcia Gwendolyn Fiel Garcia-Codilla (born October 12, 1955) is a Filipino politician who has served as the 24th governor of Cebu since 2019. She previously held the position from 2004 to 2013 and served as the representative for Cebu's third distr ...

for the governorship of Cebu and lost. He ran alongside incumbent vice governor

Hilario Davide III Hilario "Junjun" Perez Davide III (born August 25, 1964) is a Filipino politician and lawyer who is the incumbent vice governor of Cebu. He served as a governor of Cebu Province from 2013 to 2019. He is the son of former Chief Justice Hilario ...

as his running mate. In 2025, Durano was appointed provincial administrator of Cebu by governor Pam Baricuatro.

Controversies

Durano was convicted of graft by the

Sandiganbayan The Sandiganbayan () is a special Appellate court, appellate collegial court in the Philippines that has jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases involving Graft (politics), graft and corrupt practices and other offenses committed by public ...

over the development of the Department of Tourism 2009 wall calendar, worth

PhP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

2.7 million, without initiating a public bidding process. His motion for reconsideration was denied by the court in February 2022. The case is currently under appeal before the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Durano, Ace Secretaries of tourism of the Philippines Living people Politicians from Cebu Filipino people of American descent Members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines from Cebu Cebuano people University of Redlands alumni Ateneo de Manila University alumni Arroyo administration cabinet members Filipino politicians convicted of crimes Filipino politicians convicted of corruption Partido Pilipino sa Pagbabago politicians 1970 births