The senator feels so grateful to Mother Lily. “When I first ran 6 years ago, she didn’t know me, we’ve never met, but she supported me kahit nakakulong pa ako,” he says. “Kaya malaki ang utang na loob ko kay Mother Lily.”
He’s the only newbie senator who had the courage to lock horns with the veteran politician Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile. Has he met Jack Enrile who’s now also running for the senate? “No, I haven’t him. What I did, pinandigan ko lang ang pinaniniwalaan kong tama. Walang personal dito. Even Sen. Bong Revilla na nakabangga ko rin, okay naman kami sa senado. We’re civil to each other. Basta dapat, ang main concern namin is the good of the country, not our personal concerns.”
Born on Aug. 6, 1971, he’s married to Arlene Orej and they have three kids: Francis Seth and Thea Estelle. Their third baby, a boy, died in infancy. He has a BS Naval Systems Engineering degree from the PMA and a master’s degree in public ad from UP. At the senate, he’s chairman of three committees: Civil Service and Government Organization, Senate Select Oversight, and Amateur Sports. While at the Navy, he risked his life saving 32 survivors from the Princess of the Orient that sank during a typhoon in 1998. At the senate, he is the 4th most productive senator in terms of the number of bills and resolutions filed with a total of 734, 32 of which have been passed into law.
