Sonny Angara


Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Manalang Angara is a Filipino politician. Angara was first elected to the Senate of the Philippines in 2013 and re-elected for second consecutive term placing sixth with 18,161,862 votes.

Early life and education

Angara was born on July 15, 1972 in Manila. He is the son of former Senator Edgardo J. Angara and Mrs. Gloria Manalang-Angara, a former teacher and chairperson of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
He took up his basic education at Xavier School in San Juan, Metro Manila, than attended Douai School in the UK, and finished his undergraduate degree in International Relations with honors from the London School of Economics. He finished his law degree at the University of the Philippines College of Law, and earned his Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

Political career

Senate

He was elected to a second term as senator in 2019. He has sponsored or authored more than 200 laws in his nearly two decades of service as a legislator.
In the present 18th Congress, Senator Angara currently chairs the Finance and Youth committees:
Formerly, Angara was the chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Angara has already worked for the enactment of:
In the 16th Congress, Angara formerly chaired Committee on Games, Amusement and Sports where he is actively pushing for greater support for Filipino athletes and competitiveness of national sports teams competing in international competitions. Through this committee, he has authored and sponsored the following laws:
Angara was also formerly the acting chairman of the Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources. He is the sponsor of RA 10691 or the amended Public Employment Service Office Act, which aims to improve and strengthen PESOs’ employment facilitation services to help more Filipinos land a job especially in rural areas and poorer municipalities, and RA 10706 or the Seafarers Protection Act, which protects Filipino seafarers from ambulance chasers, particularly lawyers, who charge excessive legal fees arising from accident, illness, or death of seafarers in the course of their service.

House of Representatives

He was first elected to public office in 2004 as the representative to Congress for the lone district of Aurora, where he succeeded his aunt, Bellaflor J. Angara-Castillo, a three-term representative and erstwhile governor of Aurora. Elected at age 31, he was one of the youngest members of the 13th Congress. He was a member of the House minority and served as House deputy minority leader, thereby becoming an ex officio member of all standing and special committees of the 13th Congress. He authored a number of laws of national significance and was able to focus on work in his constituency, where he used the funds allotted to his office to build over 100 classrooms and provided funds for indigent constituents in 12 government hospitals and hundreds of scholarships to deserving students at various state universities and colleges. He also worked together with socio-civic groups on various projects and funded the creation of the Gawad Kalinga villages for the homeless in three of Aurora's municipalities and the provision of computers and Internet access to Aurora's public high schools, together with the GILAS Foundation, and access to vocational, skills, and livelihood training through the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and other groups.
He was elected to a second term as congressman in 2007, when he ran unopposed under the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, the same political party as in 2004. He served as deputy majority leader and vice chairman of the committee on rules, also as an ex officio member of all standing and special committees in the House during the 14th Congress.
He was one of the remaining congressmen who offered aid to some of the wounded persons and personally took some of the survivors to the nearby Far Eastern Hospital along Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City for treatment when a bomb was planted by still-unknown suspects at the premises of the House of Representatives in 2008 which resulted in the death of Congressman Wahab Akbar and the death and serious wounding of other congressmen and congressional staffers.
He topped the list of "prolific and hardworking members of the House of Representatives" for filing the most number of bills of national importance that were enacted into law in the 14th Congress. A report by the House Indexing and Monitoring Group of the Bills and Index Department showed that in the 14th Congress of 2007–2010, he, then deputy majority floor leader, filed 10 national bills that eventually became laws of the land.
He was elected to a third term as congressman for Aurora In 2010.
He was one of the signatories of the impeachment complaint against then-Chief Justice Renato Corona, which was signed by the 188 members of the Philippine House of Representatives in December 2011, was eventually adopted as the Articles of Impeachment, and was passed for consideration of the Senate impeachment court. He acted as deputy spokesperson of the House prosecution panel, together with Marikina Representative Romero Federico "Miro" S. Quimbo and Quezon Representative Lorenzo "Erin" R. Tañada III, in the impeachment trial of the Chief Magistrate.
As a three-term congressman, he authored several measures signed into law by the President of the Philippines, such as:
In his three terms as congressman, he funded through his priority development assistance fund the construction of over 300 classrooms, the education of over 3,000 scholars, and the treatment of over 12,000 patients in 11 government hospitals.

Advocacies

Angara believes that the government should be more aggressive in coming up with ways to keep its citizens in the country if it wants to compete with the rest of the world. He advocates “Tatak Pinoy” in order to create more jobs for Filipinos, promote the Philippines’ brand as one with a strong identity, and consequently, bring the poor families out of poverty.
Like his father, former Senate President Edgardo Angara, Sonny Angara is a known advocate for education, having authored laws such as the Universal Kindergarten Law, Early Years Act, Anti-Bullying Law, the University of the Philippines Charter, Ladderized Education Act, Open Learning and Distance Education Act, Open High School System Act, Youth Entrepreneurship Act, and the recently enacted RA 10687 or the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Higher and Technical Education Act to ensure that scholarship programs really benefit the poor and most deserving students in the country. He also sponsored laws that would create state universities and colleges in less developed provinces such as Catanduanes, Quirino, Negros, Cotabato, Kalinga, Compostela Valley, among others, in the firm belief that the best way out of poverty and towards a good life is quality education.
Since his days in the Lower House, he has been pushing for the Freedom of Information Act to combat corruption and foster good governance in the country.

Personal life

He worked as a trainee at the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company in Makati in 1991. He worked as a news reporter for The Philippine Star in 1992. He served as an apprentice and member of the delegation in the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in New York in 1994. He worked as an associate attorney at the Angara Abello Concepcion Regala and Cruz law firm from 2001 to 2003. He taught as a professor at the New Era University College of Law and at the Centro Escolar University School of Law and Jurisprudence.
On March 26 2020, He tested positive of COVID-19. As of March 27, 2020, he is one of the four highest ranking Philippine Government official to have been infected with the SARS-CoV2 including Senator Zubiri, Senator Pimentel and AFP Chief of Staff General Santos.

Family

He married ABS-CBN executive Tootsy Echauz in 2003; they have three children.

Awards

He was one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines awardees for 2010. He received his trophy from President Noynoy Aquino in a ceremony held at the Rizal Hall of the Malacañan. He was also a recipient of the Tanglaw ng Bayan 2011 award, the highest award given by the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Manila to individuals with exemplary achievements in their respective fields. He was conferred honorary doctorate in law by the Ramon Magsaysay Technological University in Iba, Zambales in November 2011. He was one of nine recipients of the Outstanding Manilan Award in 2017.