Edgardo Angara

Edgardo Javier Angara (, September 24, 1934 – May 13, 2018) was a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as Senate President from 1993 to 1995.

Angara had the second longest tenure in the history of the Senate, serving four terms and a total of twenty-three years.

As a legislator, Angara has championed numerous important laws and bills including the free high school law, the Senior Citizen discount law, and many more.

Edgardo Angara was born on September 24, 1934, in Baler, then part of the sub-province of Aurora in Tayabas (now Quezon), to Juan Angara and Juana Javier.

He earned his law degree from the University of the Philippines in 1958.

While in university, he joined the Sigma Rho fraternity.

Upon graduation, he was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu and Phi Kappa Phi international honor societies.

He earned his LL.M. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1964.

Angara was a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention representing the first district of Quezon.

In May 1972, he together with classmates (and fraternity brothers from Sigma Rho) from the UP College of Law and Juan Ponce Enrile, founded the ACCRA Law Offices, which became the country's most recognized and prestigious law firm in less than a decade.

In 1975, he also served as president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), the country's unified association of lawyers.

His leadership was acknowledged even on a global scale.

He became president of the Philippine Bar Association from 1975 to 1976, and of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines from 1979 to 1981.

He was chosen to serve as the first president of the largest regional legal association in the world, the Association of Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN) Law Association, when it was founded in 1980.

He also founded the ASEAN Law Association and became its founding president from 1980 to 1981.

From 1981 to 1987, Angara became president of the University of the Philippines.

He rallied alumni in the country and abroad to pool their resources for various projects to mark the university's diamond jubilee in 1983, including the creation of additional professorial chairs and faculty grants.

Through his efforts, the liberal arts curriculum was strengthened, a seven-year honors medical curriculum installed, humanities and science were energized, and a multi-campus university organization was instituted.

He defended the state university's tradition of dissent and fiscal autonomy, while maintaining its reputation for academic excellence.

He established stronger links with the business community and alumni organizations, raising the biggest faculty endowment in the university.

Angara's achievements brought him into politics.

He first served as senator from 1987 until 1992.

By this time, he had established a reputation as a resolute reformer and firm leader, winning praise for his non-confrontational stance on contentious domestic and international issues, while building consensus at the same time.

On September 16, 1989, Angara led a one-day forum with Alfonso J. Aguirre for the centennial of José Rizal's essay "Filipinas dentro de cien años" ("The Philippines, a Century Hence").

As chairman of the Congressional Commission on Education from 1990 to 1991, Angara sponsored laws that resulted in the creation of the Commission on Higher Education and the Technical Education and Skill Development Authority, both of which enabled the Department of Education to focus on its main concern - basic education.

He authored the Free High School Act that ensured secondary education even for the poorest; the Senior Citizens Act (or The Angara Law) that allowed the elderly to avail of substantial discounts when buying medicine or riding public transport; the National Health Insurance Act, or PhilHealth, that provided insurance to every citizen; and the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE), the biggest scholarship program.

Under his Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), farmers and fisher folk benefited from improved seeds and plant materials, better irrigation, better financing and market access.

He authored the Magna Carta for Public Health Workers and was the principal author of the laws that created the new National Museum and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts.

He was Senate President from 1993 to 1995.

As the Senate Chief, Angara, with his aggressive and consensus-building approach leadership style, rallied the upper chamber to pass bills and resolutions for an executive-legislative cooperation in economic reforms, which resulted in the Economic Summit of August 1993.

It was likewise during his term that the Senate adopted a policy to reimpose the death penalty for heinous crimes and saw the ratification of the Earth Summit treaty, along with five pro-environment treaties, many of which have already been enacted into law.

In August 1995, he resigned from the Senate Presidency and was elected as the new Minority Leader of the Senate.

Angara prepared to run for president in the 1998 Philippine election, but decided against it when it became clear that he could not win over the popular vice president Joseph Estrada.

He accepted a deal offered by Estrada to run as his vice presidential candidate instead.

Although Estrada overwhelmingly won the presidential race, Angara placed second in a field of nine candidates, losing to Senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino.

Arroyo won 12.6 million votes compared to Angara's 5.6 million.

Upon the inauguration of Estrada as president on June 30, 1998, Angara was named by him to be the chairman of the board of directors of the Philippine National Bank, then a government-owned bank.

In between his Senate stints, Angara also served as Secretary of Agriculture from 1999 to 2001 and also held other government positions briefly.

Outside politics, Angara served as the President of the University of the Philippines and also established himself as one of the most important figures in the bar when he was elected president of the Philippine Bar Association, the nation's oldest voluntary bar society.

On May 17, 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Angara as the special envoy of the Philippines to the European Union.