Lito Atienza

On October 1, 2021, Atienza filed his certificate of candidacy for Vice President for 2022 Philippine presidential election under PROMDI together with Senator Manny Pacquiao for President. Atienza underwent knee replacement surgery in February 2022 days after spraining his foot, making him unable to join Pacquiao in his campaign sorties, as well as the vice presidential debates. He lost the race with 270,381 votes, placing 5th behind Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.

In 2013, Atienza became the representative of Buhay Partylist in the House of Representatives. He opposed the divorce bill and tried to oppose the anti-discrimination bill as well, but withdrew after seeing a massive backlash against him. He also opposes the department of culture bill and the civil union bill. Atienza supports the Philippine Drug War, ironic since it is the complete opposite of his party's advocacies. Other moves he supports are the P1,000 budget for the Commission on Human Rights and the re-imposition of the death penalty. He also expressed his intent to campaign for the withdrawal of the reproductive (RH) law that was passed in 2013, or if not possible, he intends to minimize the funding of the law's programs. Atienza also supported the rejection of environment secretary Gina Lopez. Atienza is an investor in the mining industry in the Philippines, and has been blocking the national land use bill since his stint as representative.

In 2010, Atienza ran for a comeback as Mayor of Manila under Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, with Manila 6th district councilor Bonjay Isip-Garcia as his running mate for vice mayor. However, he lost to incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim, who received 59.52% of the votes.

The Supreme Court ruled on April 17, 2007, that Franklin Drilon was the real president of the Liberal Party and not Atienza and has approved the Daza-Drilon Amendments to the LP's Charter. It also ruled that all certificates of nomination signed by Atienza are worthless unless they moved to another political party like Batangas Governor Armando Sanchez and Manny Pacquiao, who moved to KAMPI, and Mike Defensor, who moved to Lakas-CMD, in February 2007. Voting 9–5, the court said the amended Salonga Constitution extended Drilon's term to November 2007. On July 16, 2007, the Supreme Court dismissed with finality a motion for consideration filed by Atienza (en banc resolution dated July 5, 2007). COMELEC earlier ruled that Drilon's term as LP president has already expired and called for the holding of elections to end the leadership vacuum in the country's oldest political party. The ruling came after the poll body invalidated the so-called "rump elections" of LP leaders in March 2006. On November 26, 2007, at Club Filipino, Greenhills, San Juan, LP National Executive Council officials resolved to appoint Senator Mar Roxas as president of the Liberal Party (Philippines). Corazon Aquino and Jovito Salonga, inter alia, signed the resolution. Roxas is to unite the two LP factions, and set the stage for his presidential campaign in the 2010 election. Atienza, however, questioned Roxas' appointment, attacking the composition of Liberal Party's National Executive Council (NECO) and alleged that the Supreme Court of the Philippines' June 5 resolution ordered the LP leadership's status quo maintenance.

In February 2007, Atienza formally and officially announced that his second son, the Presidential Adviser on Youth Affairs and Manila's Chair of the Inner-City Development Committee, Arnold Atienza, would run for mayor of the city on May 14, 2007. Arnold Atienza lost the mayoralty race to Sen. Alfredo Lim, who was also a former mayor.

Atienza, a staunch supporter of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was named Environment Secretary on July 18, 2007, replacing Angelo Reyes, who was moved to the Department of Energy, after incumbent Raphael Lotilla resigned. Atienza's appointment came as a shock to environmental groups, who had dubbed him as the "butcher of Arroceros." As Manila mayor, Atienza in 2003 enraged environmentalists when he ordered the closure of the Arroceros Forest Park to give way to the building of an education office and a teacher's dormitory, sparking a lawsuit. The Kalikasan People's Network said that Atienza had no moral authority to be at the helm of the DENR because he had "neither had sterling qualifications nor a clean track record of protecting the environment as former Manila Mayor."

During the second week of December 2006, Atienza, in his show of commitment to "Pro-Life," terminated the Commander of the Manila Police District (MPD) detachment in Quiapo district for failing to rid the area of herbalists who are supposedly selling concoctions that induce abortion.

The mayor battled the country's three major oil companies, the partly state-owned and Saudi Aramco managed Petron, Dutch-owned Pilipinas Shell and Caltex-Chevron. Atienza and the Manila City Council decreed that the presence of oil distribution depots in the heavily populated district of Pandacan poised as a security and safety danger and issued an eviction notice to the oil companies. The concern was raised after the terror attacks that started on September 11, 2001, that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. Atienza and the council decreed that the Pandacan district was to be converted from an industrial zone to a residential-commercial zone. A moratorium was set and the oil companies have agreed to gradually scale down their operations.

Atienza hosted the Philippine television drama romance anthology, Maynila, broadcast by GMA Network from December 13, 1999 (a year after he became Mayor of Manila) until its hiatus in 2020 due to the implementation of the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in Metro Manila amid the surge of COVID-19 cases in the region, where sometimes he acted for some cameo role, who gives advices to the characters.

He has been hosting the drama anthology television series Maynila on GMA Network since 1998.

Together with former Manila police general Alfredo Lim running for mayor, Atienza ran for vice-mayor of Manila. The two defeated the incumbent slate of then-Mayor Gemiliano Lopez Jr. The tandem won a second term in 1995. When Lim ran for President of the Philippines in 1998, Atienza was elected mayor and took his oath of office on June 24, 1998. Atienza was again re-elected in 2001 and finally in 2004. During his term as mayor, numerous heritage buildings in Manila were demolished, notably the Jai Alai Building, which used to be the best Art Deco building in all of Asia before its demolition.

Under the administration of President Corazon Aquino, Atienza was appointed general manager of the National Housing Authority (Philippines) in 1988 and he promoted low-cost housing for teachers and police officers.

During Martial Law, Atienza was arrested twice for exposing human rights abuses under the dictatorship regime of President Ferdinand Marcos. He remained with the opposition even if he was on constant threat of incarceration for opposing Marcos. Atienza was first elected as Member of Parliament in the then At-large Congressional District of Manila under the Batasang Pambansa in 1984 and served until Marcos was peacefully ousted during the People Power Revolution of 1986.

In almost forty years of Atienza's political career, he has established social development projects such as the "Mahal Ko si Lolo, Mahal Ko si Lola" (transl. I Love My Grandfather, I Love My Grandmother) foundation in 1976, a model for today's Office of Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA). In 1984, he also founded the "Kababaihan ng Maynila," (transl. The Women of Manila) a women's livelihood organization. In 1992 while serving as Vice-Mayor, he established the "Home for the Angels," a child care center for abandoned and abused infants.

Atienza started his political career in 1968 when he organized the Democratic Youth Movement. He was one of those who survived the Plaza Miranda bombing in 1971. After the 1971 elections, Atienza was hired by then Manila Mayor Ramon Bagatsing as chief information officer at the City Hall. He worked under Mayor Bagatsing for almost ten years.

Atienza was born in the San Andres Bukid district of Manila, four months before the outbreak of World War II. Atienza's father, Jose J. Atienza Sr., was a distinguished public servant to three Philippine presidents. An uncle, Hermenegildo Atienza, was a World War II guerrilla leader and after the war was appointed Military Mayor of Manila by Gen. Douglas MacArthur himself and one of the founders of the Liberal Party in 1946. Another uncle, Rigoberto Atienza, a World War II veteran, a victim of the Bataan Death March and former Philippine Army commanding general, became Chief of Staff of the Philippine Armed Forces in the 1960s during the term of President Diosdado Macapagal. A third uncle, Arturo, became a renowned lawyer. The four brothers were all members of the Hunters resistance against the Japanese occupation during World War II.

Jose "Lito" Livioko Atienza Jr. (Tagalog pronunciation: [ɐˈtijɛnsa]; born August 10, 1941) is a Filipino politician. He served as a Party-list Representative for Buhay from 2013 to 2022, and was a House Deputy Speaker from 2020 to 2022. He served as the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources from 2007 to 2009 in the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and was Mayor of Manila for three consecutive terms from 1998 to 2007. He unsuccessfully ran for vice president of the Philippines in the 2022 elections as the running mate of Senator Manny Pacquiao.