The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is urging shareholders to take advantage of the upcoming AGM season to assert their rights and to "not wait until they have been trampled on".

PSE director and co-chair of the recently established corporate governance committe, Jose Luis Javier, said: "The current global financial crisis has put the spotlight on the importance of the role shareholders play in steering the direction of a company. Empowering shareholders is consistent with good corporate governance practices as it provides balance to the power of the insiders of the company."

The PSE's shareholder activism campaign comes hard on the heels of the Exchange's recently established Corporate Governance Office and board-level Corporate Governance Committee designed to help promote better governance standards in the market which lagged 10th out of 11 Asian countries surveyed in the latest corporate governance survey by the Asian Corporate Governance Association.

PSE president Francis Lim said that the Exchange is looking to create a new listing board reserved for companies willing to subscribe to higher corporate governance standards as well as a new set of corporate governance principles and guidelines tailored for listed firms.