Charito Planas

Rosario "Charito" Lim Planas (April 28, 1930 – December 7, 2017) was a Filipino lawyer, environmentalist, politician, and human rights activist. She is the younger sister of first female Manila Vice Mayor Carmen Planas. In Quezon City, Planas ran unsuccessfully for vice mayor in 1963 and for mayor in 1971.

Planas was an active opposition figure during the martial law period under President Ferdinand Marcos, being jailed and placed under house arrest for a combined two years. In April 1978, she ran for a seat in the Interim Batasang Pambansa under the Laban opposition banner, but lost. After authorities charged Planas with subversion in the same month, she escaped to Malaysia and was later granted asylum in the United States, where she lived in exile from 1978 to 1986.

Upon returning to the Philippines, she helped revive the Liberal Party and ran for mayor of Quezon City in 1988, losing to incumbent OIC mayor Brigido Simon Jr. She later served for one term as Quezon City vice mayor from 1992 to 1995. During the 1998 Quezon City elections, Planas resigned from the Liberal Party due to its decision to nominate non-candidate Rudy Fernandez for mayor over her, citing it as a "betrayal" of the party's values; she ran as an independent mayoral candidate instead, but lost to incumbent mayor Mel Mathay.

Early life and education Planas was born on April 28, 1930 in Tondo, Manila during the American administration of the Philippines.

She graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman with a law degree.

Career Planas ran for vice mayor of Quezon City as the running mate of Charlie Albert in 1963, but lost to Mariano Santa Romana and incumbent mayor Norberto S. Amoranto respectively. Like other Marcos' opponents, she was later arrested by the authorities in November 1973 and detained with some of other opponents. She was placed under solitary confinement when the authorities aware of boosting up the morale of another anti-Marcos detainees.

1978 IBP election; exile in the United States Planas became a candidate for Metro Manila, also known as Region IV, in the 1978 Interim Batasang Pambansa (IBP) elections under the banner of Lakas ng Bayan (or Laban) led by political prisoner Ninoy Aquino. All of the Laban candidates, including Planas, lost. On April 7, the day of the election, Planas' house in Quezon City was raided by authorities, who thus filed subversion charges against her after claiming to have found numerous subversive documents and a .30 caliber carbine in her residence. Soon after the raid, Planas evaded the authorities and escaped to Sabah in Malaysia using a single-engine motorboat, and was "rescued" by US officials a month later.

When elections were held in 1984 for the Regular Batasang Pambansa, Planas was among the opposition figures who called for its boycott.

After two failed attempts to retrieve travel documents from the Philippine Embassy in the United States to return to the Philippines, she received her passport on March 6, 1986, a week after the People Power Revolution deposed President Marcos from power. She ran for mayor of Quezon City in 1988, but lost to incumbent mayor Brigido Simon Jr.

In 1992, she was picked by then-Congressman Mel Mathay to be his running mate in the mayoral elections, and the tandem subsequently won election. By May 1998, she and her running mate, councilor Jhopet Sison, lost the mayoralty election to incumbent mayor Mathay and councilor Fe Consuelo Angeles respectively.

She served as the spokesperson of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as undersecretary in the Office of the President from 2009 until 2010.