Maria Sheilah Honrado "Honey" Lacuna–Pangan, MD, FPDS (born May 6, 1965) is a Filipina physician and politician who has served as the Mayor of Manila since 2022. The first woman to serve as the city's Mayor, Lacuna previously served as the city's Vice Mayor from 2016 to 2022, as Officer-In-Charge of the Manila Department of Social Welfare from 2013 to 2015, and as a member of the Manila City Council from 2004 to 2013. She is a child of the former Vice MayorDanilo Lacuna.
A general practitioner with specialization in dermatology by profession, Lacuna worked as a resident physician of the dermatology department of Ospital ng Maynila Medical Center from 1992 to 1995 and as the public health center physician under the Manila Health Department from 1995 to 2004. As the latter, she was assigned to the Bacood Health Center in Santa Mesa and later to the Tondo Health Center in Tondo. Her father, then Vice Mayor Danny Lacuna, then tasked her to head the medical team of his office's regular medical and dental mission conducted every week in various depressed communities in Manila.[2]
She served as the Acting City Social Welfare Officer of Manila from 2013 to 2015.[1][3] Even as a politician, Lacuna continued her door-to-door visit to patients that she has been doing since before entering politics.[citation needed]
Political career
Joseph Estrada's (second from right) election campaign rally in Tondo, Manila in 2016 along with Isko Moreno (left), Grace Poe (second from left), and Honey Lacuna (right)
Lacuna then entered politics when she substituted a candidate for councilor in the 4th district of Manila who withdrew from the race ahead of the 2004 city elections. She ran under the ticket of her father, who was the running mate of former mayor Mel Lopez of Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino.[4] She then won, serving as a Manila city councilor from the 4th district for three consecutive terms from 2004 to 2013.[1] As councilor, she served in the minority whip from 2004 to 2007, chairperson of the Committee on Education, a member of 38 committees, and majority floor leader, the first woman to be named so.[3] She also authored, among others, the following:[2]
Ordinance No. 8095 designating Bicycle and Motorcycle Lanes in the main thoroughfares in Manila;
Ordinance No. 8179 creating the Manila AIDS Council for the prevention and control of sexually transmitted infections;
Ordinance No. 8117 mandating all business establishments, private and public offices in the City of Manila, including schools to require all their applicants and employees to submit to drug testing and to conduct unannounced drug tests on all their employees at least once a year; and
Ordinance No. 8102 requiring the city’s hymn ("Awit ng Maynila") in all flag ceremonies of schools, offices and other institutional/official programs and in the opening of any and all official gatherings in Manila.
Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna (left), together with vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. (right) and Mayor Isko Moreno (center), during the opening of Santa Ana Hospital's cold storage facility that can store up to 900,000 COVID-19 vaccines at a time in 2021
In the 2016 city election, she was chosen as the running mate of incumbent mayor Joseph Estrada, who was seeking re-election under Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP);[5] she then won the vice mayoralty race.[6] She became the first woman to be elected vice mayor since the post became an elective position. She was then reelected in 2019, this time as the running mate of her predecessor Isko Moreno, who was running for mayor under Asenso Manileño and defeated Estrada.[1] During the COVID-19 pandemic, she stood as a point person for Moreno in coordinating with the hospital directors of Manila, applying her expertise as a medical doctor.[7] In 2021, she joined Aksyon Demokratiko and was named as the party's Vice-President for Internal Affairs and National Executive Board Member.[8]
With Isko Moreno running for president in 2022, Lacuna was nominated by Asenso Manileño to run for mayor in 2022 to succeed him, with Manila's 3rd district representative Yul Servo as her running mate and vice mayoral candidate.[9] She won the race by a huge margin over her closest rival, Alex Lopez, making her the first-ever female to be elected mayor of Manila in 450 years.[10] She was inaugurated before outgoing mayor Moreno on June 29, 2022, at the Manila Cathedral,[11][12] but only officially started her term on the next day, succeeding him. As mayor, she vowed to prioritize health care and expand Moreno's programs.[13]
Lacuna is married to Arnold "Poks" Martin Pangan,[3] a fellow physician and registered social worker who is the incumbent City Health Officer of Manila, a former acting City Social Welfare Department Head of Manila, and a 2013 candidate for Manila councilor from the 4th district.[15] They have one daughter.[3]
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