BATASAN, Quezon City — When news came out that FPJ Panday Bayanihan party-list representative Brian Poe Llamanzares will be marrying Atty. Margarita ‘Marge’ Gutierrez, many were abuzz as the lawyer at 43 is nine years the lawmaker’s senior.
However, Llamanzares has been tight-lipped over the matter, simply informing those curious about his tying the knot that the marriage is set on September 8 the current year.
With this in view, many are now asking about who really is the son of lady senator Mary Grace Natividad Poe-Llamanzares hitching for life—aside from being an accomplished legal luminary.
Actually, Atty. Gutierrez Margarita is presently serving as an undersecretary of the Department of Justice (DoJ), where she is currently the only woman holding the position.
But long before her engagement with the grandson of the local filmdom’s ‘Hari ng Pelikulang Pilipino’—Fernando Poe Jr. or FPJ—she has quietly made a name for herself by building an impressive career in public service, law, media and advocacy.
Born as Margarita Navarro Gutierrez, she is the daughter of one of the country’s most prominent legal figures in the person of former justice secretary and former Ombudsman Maria Merceditas Consunji Navarro-Gutierrez. And like her mother, she had pursued law at the Ateneo de Manila University before embarking on a career in government.
From a young age, she had already aspired to become a lawyer, a path that seemed destined given her family’s legacy. Her grandfather, former vice governor Rufino Navarro Sr., was one of the finest litigators in Bataan, while her mother, twice becoming justice chief and former Ombudsman, devoted most of her professional years to public service.
In view of her family background and her own aspirations, Atty. Margarita Gutierrez has built a career defined not only by legal expertise but also by a promise she made as a teenager of helping those who needed justice, she continues to advocate for the protection of the dignity of every Filipino even as she prepares for a new chapter in her personal life.
ia/xf
