Juan Edgardo M. Angara is Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award

Juan Edgardo M. Angara is a lawyer, legislator, public servant, law lecturer, and columnist. He is the current secretary of the Department of Education, chairperson of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, a columnist for Business Mirror, Manila Bulletin, and Panay News, and a founding member of Nowhere to Go But UP. He was a member of the editorial board of the Philippine Law Journal. He finished his Master of Laws at the Harvard Law School in the US in 2003.

Access to free education to give opportunities to the marginalized is Angara’s prime commitment, as signified by the laws that he put in place: the Kindergarten Education Act, Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education Act, and the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act. His Early Years Act established a comprehensive and integrative system to support early childhood care and development that accounts for disabilities and cultural and linguistic diversity.

The impact of his achievements can be seen in the recognitions given him, among these the Ten Outstanding Young Men, People Asia’s People of the Year, Outstanding Manilan Award for Public Service, and the Apolinario Mabini Special Recognition Award from the Philippine Foundation for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled. The Polytechnic University of the Philippines honored him with Tanglaw ng Bayan, Ramon Magsaysay Technological University conferred upon him a Doctor of Laws honoris causa, and Lyceum of the Philippines University gave him the Gawad Rizal: Para sa Mabuting Paglilingkod.