Do we like Bam Aquino?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean run on harm and a steady, dull-in-a-good-way record on schools and corruption, marked down because we found little on his own LGBTQ+ stance.
Bam Aquino is a Filipino senator who has done the political yo-yo. He served a term, then came back in 2025 after sitting out for a while, and he did it with a bang: the official canvass put him second in the Senate race with about 21 million votes.
That result was a surprise. Reporting at the time said he and running mate Kiko Pangilinan had trailed in most pre-election surveys, then topped the vote in eight of the ten most vote-rich provinces. So the comeback was real and not just a pollster's guess.
The biggest drama in recent months was a rumour, not a scandal. In February 2026 online chatter had him as a possible running mate for Sara Duterte in 2028, and he shut it down, saying he would not run for vice president. He called it embarrassing to engage in politics while people were struggling, which is a decent line even if every politician says something similar.
On the harm test, we found no words or acts of his own that target LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet, and no pattern of platforming people who do. His public output is mostly about schools and graft. The gap is that we found no firm reporting on where he stands on trans rights or the SOGIE bill, so this is a pass on what's there, not a glowing endorsement.
What he does talk about is corruption. At a June 2026 Senate Blue Ribbon hearing he challenged the justice department, the NBI and the Ombudsman to move on the flood control anomalies, calling it one of the largest thefts in the nation's history. Where you land on the pace of that probe depends on whether you read it as sincere pressure or good politics, but he's kept hammering it.
In July 2026 he led an inspection of a school in Rizal where 18 of 103 classrooms built in 2013 to 2015 were condemned within four or five years. He ordered DepEd to publish a verified master list of school sites and told agencies to chase structural warranties against contractors who deliver substandard buildings. Dull, practical stuff, and exactly what a kid in a leaky classroom needs.