Fortunato de la Peña

De la Peña served in the Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) as executive director in 2008. He also helped organize the National Innovation Network (Filipinnovation) and served as its co-chairman in 2008. In 2011, he was elected chairman of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD).

In 2001, de la Peña assumed the post of Undersecretary for Scientific and Technological Services of the DOST under the secretaryship of Estrella F. Alabastro. He also became the longest serving president of the National Research Council of the Philippines from 2002 to 2007. During his 13 years as Undersecretary, he implemented several key information technology and e-commerce programs prior to the creation of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology. They include the e-Government Program of the DOST and the Philippine e-Library Project for which he received the highest civil service award in the Philippines in 2005.

De la Peña began work in the executive department at about the same time he was a part-time professor at UP Diliman. He was head of its Planning Service from 1982 to 1984 and was appointed as the director of Technology Application and Promotion Institute from 1989 to 1991. He is credited with playing a key role in the creation and implementation of several government programs such as the Technology Business Incubation (TBI) program and the Manufacturing Productivity Extension (MPEX) program which has been supporting small enterprises since 1991.

De la Peña started his career at UP Diliman when he joined the faculty of the UP College of Engineering in 1978. He was a research assistant of the university and the first editor of the Philippine Engineering Journal. He also chaired its Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research until 1988 when he became a full-time Industrial Engineering professor. In 1992, he was appointed as director of UP's Institute for Small Scale Industries and as vice president for planning and development of the entire University of the Philippines System by 1993. He served in those capacities until 2001 and 1999 respectively. The University of the Philippines recognized de la Peña for his distinguished career with an Outstanding Achievement Award in 1999.

Fortunato "Boy" Tanseco de la Peña (born November 12, 1949) is a Filipino engineer and professor who served as the Secretary of Science and Technology in the Cabinet of President Rodrigo Duterte from 2016 to 2022. Before he assumed leadership of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), he was the Undersecretary for Science and Technology Services from 2001 to 2014. Except for his brief retirement from 2014 to 2016, he has been with the department since 1982.

De la Peña was born in the municipality of Bulacan, Bulacan on November 12, 1949. He is the youngest of three children of Emilio Banzon de la Peña and Luz Fajardo Tanseco. He attended the University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering in 1969. He also earned his MS degree in industrial engineering and a Ph.D. in business administration from the same university in 1976. He received a diploma in Industrial Quality Control from Bouwcentrum International Education at Erasmus University Rotterdam, in the Netherlands in 1975 and pursued further studies in Operations Research at the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, New York City, U.S., now merged with New York University, in 1982.