Kit

Born to a large poor family in Gigmoto, Catanduanes on Oct. 4, 1939, the young Kit Tatad walked barefoot 54 kms. of rugged mountain trail each weekend to attend high school in the next town. He read his first great English novel at nine, finished his six-year primary course at five. At 14, he boarded a Manila-bound ship without a prepaid ticket, “to find his future out there.” He scrubbed floors to finish high school, wrote speeches to go to college.First published by Asia Magazine as a short story writer upon entering the University of Sto. Tomas, he became Manila’s youngest political columnist upon leaving the campus. In 1969, at 29, he was appointed to the Cabinet – the youngest such appointee in the country’s history. TIME International called him one of the world’s fastest-rising leaders. The Sultanate League of Marawi City named him Sultan a Macalangcap (Bearer of Truth).In 1978, he topped the elections in Bicol for the interim Batasang Pambansa. In 1980, he resigned from the Cabinet. Leaving the Batasan in 1984, he wrote columns for Business Day, Mr. & Ms. Philippine Daily Globe, op-ed page pieces for the International Herald Tribune and Asian Wall Street Journal, and published and edited Philippines Newsday, and independent broadsheet.From 1992-2001, he served as senator, mostly as Senate Majority Leader. A staunch defender of human life, the human life, the family, the rule of law, and morality of public office, he was called the Moral Conscience of the Senate. To many observers, he was simply the ablest and most productive Senate Majority leader they had seen in years.Recipient of honorary doctorates and numerous awards from the Philippine and foreign institution, he has addressed a wide variety of issues and audiences worldwide. His books, notably his latest best sellers, A Nation on Fire: the Unmaking of Joseph Ejercito Estrada and the Remaking of Democracy in the Philippines, and Power Without Authority: Crisis and Conflict in the Presidency, have all won critical praise. Since the 2001 coup, which ousted a popularly elected president, he has written extensively in the need to restore the constitutional order and rule of law in the Philippines.A “statesman for human life and the family,” Kit Tatad is Asia Pacific director of the International Right to Life Federation, and a member of the planning board of World Congress of Families, both U.S.-based global institutions. With his wife Ma. Fenny Cantero Tatad, who chairs NGO for the protection of women and children, he works closely with Christian and Muslim pro-life and pro-family leaders around the world. He and his wife have seven children, three grandchildren.