Mr. Henry S. Bensurto Jr. is a career senior diplomat, lawyer & teacher.

Mr. Bensurto is currently the Consul General to the Philippine Consulate General in Seattle which covers Washington State, Montana, Alaska, Oregon and Idaho.

Mr. Bensurto served as the Philippine Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Turkiye, Georgia and Azerbaijan from 2023 to 2026.

Mr. Bensurto’s previous postings include as Assistant Secretary for the Office of Consular Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs (2022-2023), Consul General, San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest, USA.

He is one of the Philippines’ leading experts on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and South China Sea/West Philippine Sea issue.

In 2012, at the height of China’s creeping assertions in the South China Sea, Mr. Bensurto was appointed as lead counsel of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs’ in the South China Sea Arbitration. He earlier authored the Zone of Peace, Freedom, Friendship and Cooperation in the South China Sea (ZOPFFC) as the Philippine’s foreign policy approach in the South China Sea; and which later became the core legal framework of the Philippine suit against China.

Mr. Bensurto is a recipient of various Presidential Awards including the Presidential Award of the Order of Lakandula with the Rank of Grand Officer Commander by President Benigno Aquino III in 2015 for his works on the South China Sea, and the Presidential Award of Gawad Mabini with the Rank of Dakilang Kasugo by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for his works in the passage of the Philippine Archipelagic Baselines Law (RA 9522).

For his “distinguished and successful involvement in the Philippine’s suit against China before the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague,” Mr. Bensurto received the 2016 Torch Bearer Award from the Philippine–American Press Club-USA. He is also a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus for Public Service and Good Governance in 2017 from the University of the Philippines, and Most Distinguished Alumnus and 100% Malatean Award from Malate Catholic School in 2018. Mr. Bensurto is likewise a recipient of the Bedan of the Year Award (2023).

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) has also selected Mr. Bensurto as a semi-finalist in its 2023 nationwide search for the prestigious Presidential Lingkod Bayan award.

Mr. Bensurto’s other previous works include the following:

In 2005, Mr. Bensurto was the lead counsel of the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC that protected PH sovereignty from attempts by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to exercise criminal jurisdiction over Filipino Executives of Philippine telecommunication companies including PLDT & Globe for alleged anti-trust actions in the Philippines.

As Secretary General of the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs Secretariat, Mr. Bensurto helped shepherd the Philippine Submission for Extended Continental Shelf in Benham Rise which was approved by the UN Commission on the Limits for Continental Shelf in 2012.

Mr. Bensurto is an alumnus of the University of the Philippines (AB Political Science minor in Economics), San Beda College of Law (Juris Doctor), and Oxford University (with a Distinction in Public International Law). He has a Diploma on the Law of the Sea at the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy, Rhodes, Greece; and a Certificate on National Security at the Center for National Security Law, University of Virginia School of Law, at Charlottesville, VA. He also attended short-term courses on International Trade Law and Human Rights Law at the Georgetown Law Center and American University in Washington DC.

Mr. Bensurto is also a professor at the San Beda Graduate School of Law.

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