Loren Legarda

Biography

Lorna Regina "Loren" Bautista Legarda (born January 28, 1960) is a Filipino politician and former journalist who has served as a senator of the Philippines since 2022, following previous terms spanning from 1998 to 2004 and 2007 to 2019. During her tenure as senator, she served as the president pro tempore of the Senate of the Philippines from 2022 to 2024, and from May 11, 2026, to June 3, 2026. She also served for one term in the House of Representatives from 2019 to 2022. Legarda has focused her political career towards environmentalism and culture, as well as international engagements with organizations connected with the United Nations, while being criticized as a political butterfly. She and her youngest son, Leandro Leviste, flew and escaped outside the country in August 2026, amid plunder and graft investigations.

== Early life == Loren Legarda was born on January 28, 1960, in Malabon (then a municipality in Rizal) as Lorna Regina Bautista Legarda, the only daughter of Antonio Cabrera Legarda and Maria Salome Basilia "Bessie" Gella Bautista. Her maternal grandfather was Jose P. Bautista, editor-in-chief of the pre-Martial Law newspaper, The Manila Times. As a teenager, she appeared as a print and television model. She attended Assumption College from primary to high school. She graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in Broadcast Communications and was President of the UP Broadcast Association. She pursued post-graduate courses on special studies towards professional designation in journalism from the University of California, Los Angeles.

== Career in journalism and broadcasting == Legarda began a career in journalism as a reporter for RPN, during which she covered topics including Imelda Marcos' trip to Kenya and the People Power Revolution. During this period, she obtained a master's degree in National Security Administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines, graduating at the top of the class with gold medals for Academic Excellence and Best Thesis. Later, she would move to the reopened ABS-CBN. She became the co-anchor of the television newscast, The World Tonight with Angelo Castro, Jr., and became the host of the current affairs series, The Inside Story. As a journalist, Loren earned the Gawad Cultural Center of the Philippines, Catholic Mass Media Hall of Fame, Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas Golden Dove Award, Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) from the Philippine Jaycees (1992), The Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service (TOWNS) Award (1995), and the Benigno Aquino Award for Journalism (1995), among more than 30 awards. She is also the presenter of Dayaw, a 6-part series about Philippine heritage and culture. The show has been given a continuous series annually. In January 2018, the fourth season of Dayaw premiered in ANC, while a separate show dedicated to Filipino cuisine and raw ingredients is being planned for a later showing. In February 2018, Legarda and the NCCA launched the Buhay na Buhay television series which focused on eight living sub-cultures of Filipino culture. She also hosts Maaram, a series of documentaries on intangible cultural heritage, which premiered in ANC in 2024. In December 2017, Legarda and director Brillante Mendoza partnered for a documentary the series, entitled, "Our Fragile Earth: Protected Areas of the Philippines," began airing in ANC on December 8. The series features the Camotes Island Mangrove Swamp Forest Reserve, El Nido Managed Resource Protected Area, Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Sagay Marine Reserve, Mounts Banahaw–San Cristobal Protected Landscape, Rasa Island Wildlife Sanctuary, Coron Island, Mount Hamiguitan (UNESCO World Heritage Site), and Lake Sebu, which is part of the Allah Valley Protected Landscape. The series also features the Banaue Rice Terraces, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Verde Island Passage.

== Political career ==

=== 1998 Senate bid, first term === Legarda ran for the Senate in 1998 under the Lakas-NUCD-UMDP Party. She was elected with more than 15 million votes, rendering her the highest number of votes in that year's election and becoming the second woman to top a Philippine senatorial election. Upon Legarda filing her candidacy as senator in late 1997, Tina Monzon-Palma who came from rival ABC (now TV5) and was the anchor of The Big News, transferred to ABS-CBN in order to replace her on The World Tonight at the same time and joining Angelo Castro, Jr. in order to run the latter for this election. In 1999, the newscast was replaced by Pulso: Aksyon Balita on ABS-CBN and was moved to the ABS-CBN News Channel, where it has aired. Legarda was named as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2000, and was awarded by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) in Turin, Italy, for her work on the environment in 2001. Legarda played a role in the 2000–01 impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada that sparked the Second EDSA Revolution, voting to examine the envelope containing evidence of alleged corruption of the Estrada administration. She was later chosen to be the Senate's Majority Floor Leader from 2001 to 2004, becoming the first woman to hold the position.

=== 2004 vice presidential bid ===

In 2003, Legarda left Lakas–CMD (after Gloria Macapagal Arroyo broke her pledge not to run again for president) and joined the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino coalition of Fernando Poe, Jr. as an Independent during the 2004 elections. She lost the election to Noli de Castro, the running mate of Arroyo, under a narrow margin of 3.9%. Legarda's running mate, Fernando Poe, Jr., was a strong ally of then-ousted President Joseph Estrada. Legarda previously voted to open the controversial envelope that would have helped in the conviction of Estrada during his 2001 impeachment trial. On January 18, 2008, in a 21-page resolution, penned by Senior Justice Leonardo Quisumbing, the Supreme Court of the Philippines, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), dismissed Legarda's electoral protest against de Castro.

=== 2007 Senate bid, second term === In 2007, Legarda decided to run again for Senate under the banner of the Genuine Opposition coalition. In her second term as senator, Legarda authored the Expanded Senior Citizens Law, the Climate Change Act, Clean Air Act, Renewable Energy Act, the Magna Carta for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Act, Barangay Kabuhayan Act, the Magna Carta on Women, University of the Philippines Charter of 2008, Bacolor Rehabilitation Council Act, Tourism Act of 2009, Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and Intervention Act of 2009, Food and Drug Administration Act of 2009, and the Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act. The Climate Change Act was lauded by the United Nations as the 'best in the world'. She co-authored the National Cultural Heritage Act. Aside from her legislative work, she also established the Luntiang Pilipinas (Green Philippines) foundation, an organization aimed to aid the Philippines in attaining its United Nations mandate for reforestation, where the target was set by the UN at 2009. During this period, Legarda was a known critic of Senate President Manny Villar. On November 18, 2008, Legarda was among the senators who was supposed to vote for Villar's ouster, but Villar resigned instead. Legarda afterwards voted in favor of Juan Ponce Enrile as the new Senate president. Also in 2008, she was chosen as "United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Asia Pacific Regional Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation", and she participated in the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction, the BBC World Debate: ‘Prevent or React’, and the Forum on the Human Impact of Climate Change in Geneva, Switzerland. In October 2009, the Climate Change Act was passed. She filed this bill two years ago, citing inspiration from the Albay Declaration, the outcome document of the First National Conference on Climate Change Adaptation, as it called for “the passage of a policy prioritizing climate change adaptation in the national agenda”. She was a member of the Philippine delegation during the 2009 Copenhagen Summit.