Mary Joyce Ilas

Joyce conceptualizes and implements effective communication strategies to advance client interests in the Philippines. She facilitates advocacy campaigns and projects on governance, digital infrastructure and transportation. 

Joyce concurrently serves as the advocacy and communications lead at the Stratbase ADR Institute (ADRi). She develops and implements strategic communication plans, strengthens stakeholder engagements and creates alliance-building plans for the institute. She is also a co-convenor of ADRi’s advocacy group Democracy Watch Philippines, a citizen-led initiative that seeks to uphold democratic values through good governance initiatives and electoral reform. 

Earlier Joyce worked as a political journalist for more than a decade. She served as a news anchor and news correspondent for CNN Philippines, where she covered the Senate and House of Representatives. Among her major assignments were the 2013, 2016 and 2019 national elections, the impeachment trial of a chief justice and congressional investigations, including on the Duterte administration’s war on drugs and the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam. 

From 2021-22, Joyce worked as the senior communications and information specialist for PARTICIPATE, a project of the United States Agency for International Development and the Ateneo School of Government that aims to enhance political participation in the Philippines. 

Joyce holds a master’s degree in public administration with a major in public policy and program administration and a bachelor’s degree in broadcast communication from the University of the Philippines Diliman. She has written academic papers on political and electoral reforms, human rights, poverty and governance.