Sonny Angara

Elected at age 31, he was one of the youngest members of the 13th Congress.

Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Manalang Angara (born July 15, 1972) is a Filipino politician and lawyer serving as a Senator since 2013.

He is also the chairman of Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, the governing body of basketball in the Philippines.

Angara was born on July 15, 1972, in Manila to lawyer and future senator Edgardo Angara and Gloria Manalang-Angara, a teacher who would become chairperson of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

He took up his basic education at Xavier School in San Juan, Metro Manila, then attended Douai School in the UK, and finished his Bachelor of Science 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.

He worked as a trainee at the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company (Metrobank) in Makati in 1991.

He worked as a news reporter for The Philippine Star in 1992.

His father, Edgardo Angara, was the Senate President from 1993 to 1995.

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 (ACCRA) law firm from 2001 to 2003.

He taught as a professor at the New Era University (NEU) College of Law and at the Centro Escolar University (CEU) School of Law and Jurisprudence.

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

He had previously served as the Representative of Aurora's lone district from 2004 to 2013.

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.

He was elected to a second term as congressman in 2007, when he ran unopposed under the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), 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 (2007–2010).

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 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 University - Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation in Quezon City for treatment when a bomb was planted 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.

Angara was elected to a third term as congressman for Aurora in 2010.

He was a signatory to 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 Miro Quimbo and Quezon Representative Lorenzo 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:

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 (SUCs).

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 (TESDA) and other groups.

Angara was elected to the Senate in 2013 and was reelected in 2019.

He ran under the then-administration coalitions Team PNoy and Hugpong ng Pagbabago, respectively.

He has sponsored or authored more than 200 laws in his nearly two decades of service as a legislator.

Laws sponsored/authored in the 16th Congress (2013 to 2016):

Formerly, Angara was the chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Angara has already worked for the enactment of:

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.

Laws sponsored/authored in the 17th Congress (2016 to 2019):

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 formerly acting chairman of the Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources.

He sponsored RA 10691 or the amended Public Employment Service Office (PESO) 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.

In the 18th Congress, Senator Angara currently chairs the Finance and Youth committees:

As chairman of the Senate Committee of Finance, Senator Angara sponsored into law measures crucial to COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery:

Other laws sponsored/authored in the 18th Congress (2019 onwards):