Koko Pimentel

Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III is a senator in the 19th Congress, serving his second full term since August 2011. He is the son of the late Senate president Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. – a patriot, stalwart, and pillar of Philippine democracy and among those who fought the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Seeking to follow in his father’s political footsteps, Pimentel ran in the 2007 senatorial election but was not proclaimed as the 12th winning senator until 2011, when the Supreme Court, acting as the Senate Electoral Tribunal, ruled in favor of his electoral protest. At the time, he only had less than two years left in his six-year term.

Pimentel majored in mathematics at the Ateneo de Manila University where he graduated in 1985. He earned his law degree from the University of the Philippines in 1990, and topped the Bar examination in 1991.

He was Senate president from 2016 to 2018, and Senate minority leader since July 2022. Pimentel was among those who opposed the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund and had urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to veto the measure.

Pimentel’s advocacies include the welfare of senior citizens and persons with disabilities. He also supports a shift to federalism.