Few people could name the solicitor general during the previous administration, let alone name his top accomplishments. Never mind that Florin Hilbay, then 40, was the youngest to ever hold the post as the government’s top lawyer, or that, as solgen, it’s his signature that appears on the Philippines’ case against China regarding our claim on the West Philippine Sea. Or that, as a senior state solicitor, he defended the Reproductive Health law at the Supreme Court.
Florin Hilbay may have started to become a household name after his term as solicitor general ended, as he stepped in as legal counsel for Senator Leila de Lima in 2018, where his clear and eloquent oral arguments were broadcast to a polarized audience that finally found reason to either love him or hate him.
But it was really when Florin Hilbay became @fthilbay on Twitter that he became a political force—and, now, a senatorial candidate. As part of the Otso Diretso slate, he is one of the most vocal oppositionists running; he is also one of the first to understand the power of social media in delivering one’s message. But he’s a newbie when it comes to being a politician, not to mention a candidate. So he sticks to his message, about being a poor boy from Tondo who did good as a lawyer and public servant. He hopes that it’ll be enough to get him to the Senate.
Ask Florin Hilbay to tell you about Florin Hilbay, and he’s ready to rattle off a detailed story that begins in Tondo, where he was born as the first son of, he says, “a mom who’s an elementary graduate, a househelper, and a father who’s a high school graduate [who then raised] a bar topnotcher.”
Hilbay’s story is compelling, and he knows how to use it. He has to: The latest surveys show him lagging among the candidates, and last among the oppositionists. But then again his entire life has been about beating the odds by sheer force of will (and work), so if he seems confident, it may be because the odds haven’t ever meant anything to Hilbay.
And so Florin Hilbay—“here in Tondo, they call me Pilo”—will keep telling his story over and over again, until election day. It’s a long story, too, because his professional, pre-politics life has been nothing short of stellar.
