Mary Grace Natividad Sonora Poe-Llamanzares (born September 3, 1968) is a Filipino politician who served as a senator of the Philippines from 2013 to 2025. An independent, she previously served as chairperson of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) from 2010 to 2012. During her time in the Senate, she chaired several committees, including the Committees on Public Services, Economic Affairs, Public Information and Mass Media, and Public Order and Dangerous Drugs. She promoted legislation on education, child welfare, consumer protection, transportation, public services, and freedom of information, and advocated greater transparency and accountability in government.
The adoptive daughter of actors Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces, Poe studied at the University of the Philippines Manila before earning a degree in political science from Boston College in the United States. She returned to the Philippines in 2004 to assist her father's presidential campaign and remained in the country following his death, campaigning against alleged electoral fraud and later entering public service.
Poe was elected to the Senate in the 2013 Philippine Senate election as an independent affiliated with the Team PNoy coalition, receiving the highest number of votes among all candidates. She was the standard bearer of the Partido Galing at Puso in the 2016 Philippine presidential election. After the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled that she was a natural born Filipino citizen and met the constitutional residency requirement, her candidacy was upheld and she placed third in the election. She was reelected to the Senate in the 2019 Philippine Senate election, again finishing among the top vote getters.
Early life Poe was found on September 3, 1968, in Iloilo City by a woman, in the holy water font of Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral, the main church of the city.
When the infant was discovered, the parish priest named her "Grace" in the belief that her finding was through divine grace; she was christened by Jaime Sin, the Archbishop of Jaro, who would later become Archbishop of Manila. Although the cathedral issued an announcement in the hopes that her biological mother would claim her, no one stepped forward.
Poe was eventually taken in by the Militar family, with Sayong Militar's in-law Edgardo, who was a signatory on the child's foundling certificate, considered to be her possible father. Her name on her original Certificate of Live Birth was given as Mary Grace Natividad Sonora Militar. Sayong Militar later passed Grace on to her friend Tessie Ledesma Valencia, an unmarried, childless heiress of a sugar baron from Bacolod, Negros Occidental.
Valencia was also a friend of film stars Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces, who were newlyweds at the time; Valencia was an acquaintance of Roces and was the one who brought Grace in trips between Bacolod and Manila. The Poes took Grace in after Valencia decided the baby would be better off with two parents in the Philippines rather than with her as a single parent in the United States, where she was moving to. Militar was initially hesitant in letting the Poe couple adopt Grace because she was unfamiliar with them, having entrusted the baby to Valencia, but was convinced by Archbishop Sin to let the couple adopt her.
Poe was legally adopted by the actors Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces and she was named Mary Grace Natividad Sonora Poe by them. While still young, she watched her father from the sets of his movies—even playing minor roles in some of them, such as the daughter of Paquito Diaz's character in Durugin si Totoy Bato, and as a street child in Dugo ng Bayan. Ultimately, Poe did not enter show business.
Poe has two adoptive half-siblings through her father. Both of these half-siblings are actors: Ronian, born to actress Ana Marin; and Lourdes Virginia (Lovi), born to model Rowena Moran. However, she did not grow up with her half-siblings, even admitting that she met Lovi for the first time only after their father died in 2004.
Education In 1975, Poe attended elementary school at Saint Paul College of Pasig and Saint Paul College of Makati. In 1982, Poe transferred to Assumption College San Lorenzo for high school. Following high school, Poe entered the University of the Philippines Manila (UP), where she majored in development studies. She transferred to Boston College, where she graduated with a degree in political science in 1991. She interned for Bill Weld's campaign while in college.
Role in father's 2004 presidential campaign
In 2003, Poe's father Fernando Jr. announced that he was entering politics, running for president of the Philippines in the upcoming election. He ran under the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP), the opposition coalition against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was seeking reelection. Poe returned to the Philippines to help him campaign, but returned to the United States afterward.
Fernando Jr. was rushed to the hospital after a stroke later that year. Grace immediately returned to the Philippines, only to arrive shortly after her father had died on December 14, 2004. Following her father's death, Poe and her family decided to return permanently to the Philippines on April 8, 2005, to be with her widowed mother.Grace Poe's citizenship, residency, Rappler. September 4, 2015.
MTRCB Chairwoman (2010–2012) In the 2010 general election, Poe served as a convenor of Kontra Daya. She also became honorary chairperson of the FPJ for President Movement (FPJPM), the group which was organized to pressure her father to run in 2004, continuing the movement's social relief programs for the less fortunate. On October 10, 2010, President Benigno Aquino III appointed Poe to serve as chairwoman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). She was sworn in on October 21, 2010, at the Malacañang Palace and was later reappointed by President Benigno Aquino III for another term on October 23, 2011.
While at the MTRCB, Poe had advocated for a "progressive" agency which would have enabled the television and film industries to help the Philippine economy, with her tenure being marked by an emphasis on diplomacy. At the beginning of her term, Poe instigated the implementation of a new ratings system for television programs, which she said was "designed to empower parents to exercise caution and vigilance with the viewing habits of their children". This was complemented by the implementation of a new ratings system for movies—a system which closely follows the new television ratings system—at the end of her term.
The MTRCB under Poe's tenure also implemented policies and programs to promote "intelligent viewing", such as promulgating the implementing rules and regulations for the Children's Television Act of 1997 some fifteen years after its passage, and enforcing restrictions on the type of viewing material that can be shown on public buses. Despite this thrust, Poe has spoken out against restrictions on freedom of expression, preferring self-regulation to censorship. During this time, she encouraged the creation of new cinematic output through the reduction of review fees despite cuts to its budget, and has promoted the welfare of child and female actors.
Philippine election campaigns
2013
Although Poe was rumored to be running for senator as early as 2010, it was not confirmed that she would stand for election until October 1, 2012, when President Aquino announced that she was selected by the administration Team PNoy coalition as a member of their senatorial slate. Poe filed her certificate of candidacy the next day on October 2, 2012. Although running under the banner of the Team PNoy coalition, Poe officially ran as an independent. Poe was also a guest candidate of the left-leaning Makabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan. Until February 21, 2013, Poe was, along with Senators Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero, one of three common guest candidates of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) of Vice-president Jejomar Binay.
Analysts noted the rapid rise of Poe in national election surveys, which community organizer Harvey Keh attributed to popular sympathy for her father, fueled in part by high public trust in the Poe name. Prior to the start of the election season, Poe was ranked twenty-eighth in a preliminary survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) in mid-2012, before the start of the filing period. Immediately after filing her candidacy, Poe initially ranked fifteenth in the first survey of the election, published by StratPOLLS. While she ranked as low as twentieth in a survey published by SWS later in the year, she entered the top 12 in January 2013, where she stayed. In the last survey issued by Pulse Asia in April 2013, she was ranked third.
While Poe herself admitted that her biggest strength in the campaign was her surname, she also conceded that it would be insufficient for her to be elected simply on that alone, emphasizing that her platform is just as important as her name in getting her elected to the Senate. She also dismissed claims that her candidacy was her family's revenge against her father's loss in 2004, saying that all she wants to do is serve should she be elected to the Senate. A day after the election, Poe was announced as among the winners with her having the highest number of votes. She was officially proclaimed a senator by the COMELEC board in May 2013, along with fellow Team PNoy candidates Chiz Escudero, Sonny Angara, Alan Peter Cayetano, and Loren Legarda, as well United Nationalist Alliance candidate Nancy Binay (who did not attend, opting instead to send her lawyer to represent her).
Platform In the 2013 elections, Poe ran on an eleven-point platform promising to continue the legacy of her father. Her labor legislative agenda also includes more opportunities, skill development and growth for Filipino workers, employment security for the disabled and handicapped, and protection of workers in the informal sector. Specific policies she advocated in the course of her campaign include reviving the national elementary school lunch program first introduced during Marcos Era, the installation of closed-circuit television cameras in government offices, and stricter penalties against child pornography, continuing her earlier advocacy during her time at the MTRCB. In addition, she has also advocated against Internet censorship.
Poe also stressed the importance of female participation in government, having already filed a number of laws for the betterment of women and children in her term of office; she has also called for an investigation on the proliferation of cybersex dens that prey on children and women, and an inquiry on the condition of women detainees and prisoners.
2019 On May 13, 2019, Poe was reelected to the Senate with over 22 million votes, coming in second, only behind fellow Senator Cynthia Villar.
Senate of the Philippines (2013–2025)
First term (2013–2016)
On her first day as a senator in the 16th Congress, Poe filed a bill promoting film tourism in the Philippines, aiming to make the country a primary shooting location for local and international films. She said that this would generate jobs and promote tourism in the Philippines as well. Poe also filed the "Sustenance for the Filipino child" bill which seeks to give free nutritious meals to children enrolled in public elementary schools and high schools in K-12. It aims to solve hunger and malnutrition which hindered the Filipino youth's potential.