Kaka Bag-ao

Arlene "Kaka" Javellana Bag-ao (born July 3, 1969) is a Filipino human rights lawyer and agrarian reform advocate who served as Governor of the Dinagat Islands from 2019 to 2022.

She has been dubbed as the 'Dragon Slayer' after consecutively defeating two of the most prominent members of the influential Ecleo political dynasty of the Dinagat Islands.

She was a Law and Human Rights Humphrey Fellow — in the Academic Year 2006-2007 - at the University of Minnesota, under a program implemented by the Fulbright Commission of the United States of America.

As an alternative lawyer, she is also involved in policy reform both at the local and national levels, working with different advocacy groups and law school based organizations in the country.

In 2004, Bag-ao was asked to become the special consultant to the Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform and facilitated the awarding of numerous land titles to farmer-beneficiaries.

The ALG is a coalition of twenty (20) alternative legal resource non-government organizations engaged in developmental lawyering in different parts of the country.

[14] As a native of the province and through the endorsement of Surigao del Norte Representatives Francisco Matugas and Guillermo Romarate, Jr., Bag-ao was appointed by House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, Jr. as the Legislative Liaison Officer or Caretaker of the Lone District of Dinagat Islands.

[15][16] Upon her assumption as Dinagat caretaker, Bag-ao led a series of consultations in the province's 100 barangays, asking the residents of their community concerns and development projects they wish to see.

[26] Public outraged erupted afterwards, condemning the budget cut for a commission responsible for looking at the human rights violations of the government.

[27] On the same month, after 17 years of political limbo, the SOGIE Equality Bill finally passed in the House of Representatives under Bag-ao's principal authorship.

She had influential political powers on the Committees on Women and Gender Equality, Natural Resources, Mindanao Affairs, Human Rights, Justice, and Constitutional Amendments, among many others.

[28] In October 2017, she was one of only two House committee members who voted against the sufficiency of the grounds to impeach Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.