Gilbert Teodoro

Prior to the 2016 Philippine elections, Rodrigo Duterte advised Miriam Defensor-Santiago to make Teodoro her vice president, in return, Duterte will support the tandem. However, Santiago chose Bongbong Marcos as her running mate. Duterte then run for the presidency and won. In May 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte offered Teodoro to return to his post as Secretary of National Defense but said that he would consult his family first on his final decision as to whether he would accept it. In early June 2016, he declined Duterte's offer. He was yet again offered by Duterte for the defense post on August 23, 2016.

Following his three terms in office—the maximum number allowed by the constitution — he was succeeded by his wife, Monica Prieto-Teodoro.

In April 2014, Teodoro was appointed as an independent director of Banco de Oro, one of the Philippines' largest bank which is owned by Teresita Sy-Coson, the eldest daughter of SM Prime Holdings owner Henry Sy. In August 2015, he was named board chairman of the Sagittarius Mines Incorporated (SMI).

On May 11, 2010, a day after the elections were held, Teodoro gracefully conceded defeat to the leading presidential candidate, Senator Noynoy Aquino of the Liberal Party. During a press conference he held in the Lakas-KAMPI-CMD national headquarters in Metro Manila, Teodoro wished Aquino well and also announced his decision to return to private life in order to take care of his wife and only son.

In March 2009, Teodoro announced his intention to run for President of the Philippines in the May 2010 election. Months earlier, he quit his old party Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) to join the merged administration party Lakas Kampi CMD and cast his name in the ruling party's contenders for the 2010 elections.

On September 16, 2009, voting 42–5 through secret balloting, the executive committee of Lakas-Kampi officially selected Teodoro as their party's presidential standard bearer for the May 2010 elections, edging out the other nominee, MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando. The announcement was made by Lakas-Kampi Secretary General Gabriel Claudio after a deliberation that lasted for approximately an hour.

Teodoro was appointed Secretary of the Department of National Defense in August 2007 at the age of 43, like the late Ramon Magsaysay, he is also the youngest person to ever hold the position.

From 1998 to 2007 he was a House Representative for the First District of Tarlac province. He assumed the position of Assistant Majority Leader in the 11th Congress and head of the Nationalist People's Coalition House members. He was also a member of the House contingent to the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council. Teodoro was a part of the "Bright Boys" clique.

At the age of 16, in 1980, Teodoro was elected as the Kabataang Barangay (KB) President in Tarlac. He went on to lead Central Luzon and became a member of the Tarlac Sangguniang Panlalawigan at the time that his mother was the Tarlac representative in the National Assembly.

Born in Isabela, Philippines, Teodoro finished elementary in 1977 and high school in 1981 at Xavier School, and obtained his undergraduate degree in commerce from De La Salle University in 1984. He then studied law at the University of the Philippines from 1985 to 1989, and finished at the top of his class. He was also awarded the Dean's Medal for Academic Excellence. He topped the 1989 Philippine Bar Examinations with an 86.18% bar rating. In 1997, he obtained his Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he passed the State Bar of New York.

Gilberto Eduardo Gerardo Cojuangco Teodoro Jr. PLH (born on June 14, 1964 in Isabela, Philippines), or more commonly known as Gilbert/Gibo, is the former secretary of the national defense of the Republic of the Philippines, having assumed the post in August 2007 until November 15, 2009. He was a member of the House of Representatives, representing the First District of Tarlac province, from 1998 to 2007. In March 2009, he announced his intention to run for President of the Philippines in the May 2010 elections.

Teodoro is a second cousin of former president, Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, son of former President Corazon Aquino and former Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. While Teodoro's mother, Mercedes Cojuangco, is a first cousin of Aquino's mother, former President Corazon Aquino. Both families have always been on different sides of the political fence since the 1960s. During the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos, Teodoro's father served as Social Security System administrator while Aquino's father, former senator Benigno Aquino Jr., was a leading opposition leader.

Under the law (PD 1566), the NDCC's role as a temporary or ad hoc committee is very limiting because it places the budget and primary responsibility during natural disasters on the hands of local government officials. For this reason, Teodoro expressed the desire for bills that seek to replace PD 1566 with a permanent Disaster Risk Reduction Council (DRRC) that will be given the right powers and resources to correct the weaknesses of the current law.