Date of Birth: October 25, 1955
Place of Birth: Porac, Pampanga
Spouse: Marissa Tadeo-Lapid
Address: Provincial Capitol, San Fernando City
Contact Nos.:

Governor Manuelito "Lito" Lapid is a byword in the Philippine movie industry. An action film star who shone brightly in the 80s, he was elected governor in 1995. With the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, he was pushed to the forefront of disaster mitigation efforts in Central Luzon-affected provinces. Pampanga was economically and physically prostrate as a result of massive lahar flows, and he worked alongside the Mt. Pinatubo Commission, Phivolcs, NGOs, multi-sectors, donors, and the governors of Zambales, Bataan, and Tarlac in relief and rehabilitation efforts. Resettlement housing sites, majority of which are located in Pampanga, were completed under his administration with inputs from the national government and donor circles. These have transformed into mini townships that now thrive self-sufficiently.

His program of government revolved not merely around rehabilitation efforts, but was poised more frontally toward investments promotion. The provincial government interfaced closely with the BCDA and Clark Development Corporation to prime the Clark Special Economic and Freeport Zone, the economic hub of Region III and prospective site of the millennial international airport. Pampanga's economy, under Governor Lapid's term, has recovered and emerged pro-industrial, as shown by the spate of entrepreneurial activity that takes place and the rise in the number of small establishments in the barangays.

Governor Lapid, in dealing with issues obtaining at the grassroots and at the level of Pampanga cultural communities, is turning popular attitude away from mendicancy and chronic dependence and into the opposite direction of self-help through community organizing, livelihood generation, and institutionalization of social welfare and development programs. Having come from humble beginnings himself has keyed him in to situational patterns well enough to design appropriate solutions to the people's poverty conditions.

GOV. LITO LAPID IN ACTION