Do we like Liza Soberano?
Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or company turned up and she has a record of speaking up for women and children, but the record on LGBTQ+ issues is silent.
Liza Soberano started working as a kid and became one of the Philippines' biggest young stars through ABS-CBN's Star Magic stable. In a 2023 interview she said she never got to grow into herself as an adult and discover who she was on her own terms. That frame explains a lot of what came next.
The 2023 rebrand was the messy bit. She posted a vlog called "This is Me" after wiping her social channels, and later said she was just stating facts. Her revelations about her old management set off a public back-and-forth with former manager Ogie Diaz over commissions. She later apologised to ABS-CBN and Diaz, which is a point in her favour.
On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up in her own words or in the company she keeps. In 2020 she joined a Gabriela Youth webinar on women's issues, and a military commander warned her off the group, which he said the military sees as a communist front. Her lawyer denounced that as red-tagging and said she is apolitical. Parlade denied red-tagging her.
Honest gap: we found nothing from her on LGBTQ+ rights, climate or vaccines, for or against. That is a quiet record, not a bad one. She has publicly backed women and children, and her lawyer called that her personal advocacy.
The recent news is mostly happy. In January, netizens apologised to her after her old comments calling loveteam culture "dangerous" got fresh attention, and she replied "Why are people saying sorry to me? I'm so confused…". Then came the lead role in DreamWorks' Forgotten Island, a Filipino-folklore story.
On the good stuff, she became a Save the Children Philippines ambassador in 2021, and the organisation says she had been donating and sponsoring a child in Uganda since 2016. It's a steady record of speaking up for kids and young women, and she got there without any scandal that sticks.