Benjamin Abalos

Benjamin Santos Abalos Sr. (born September 21, 1934) is a Filipino politician who currently serves as the mayor of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila since 2022, a position he also held from 1986 to 1987 and from 1988 to 1998. He also served as a chairman of the Commission on Elections and chairman of the MMDA. He is the father of former Mandaluyong mayor and Interior and Local Government Secretary Benjamin "Benhur" Abalos Jr. Early life Abalos was born into a poor family in Pangasinan on September 21, 1934. He studied economics at Ateneo de Manila University and graduated from the Manuel L. Quezon University in 1957. Abalos was admitted to the roll of attorneys of the Supreme Court in 1958 and then into the Integrated Bar of the Philippines in 1973. Abalos supported himself through college by taking several jobs, working as a janitor, factory worker, and a caddy at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club. Political career In 1963, Abalos ran for vice mayor of Mandaluyong, which was then a municipality of Rizal, and lost to the scion of a political family. He ran for Mandaluyong mayor in 1980, losing to the candidate of former President Ferdinand Marcos. In 1986, shortly after Marcos was ousted through a popular uprising, President Corazon Aquino appointed him as Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of the then municipality of Mandaluyong.