The LP served as the governing party of four Philippine presidents: Manuel Roxas, Elpidio Quirino, Diosdado Macapagal, and Benigno Aquino III.

The general election of 2022, however, was a setback for the party, which lost both the Presidency and Vice-Presidency, as well as all of its seats in the Senate, and saw its representation in the House of Representatives reduced.

Aside from presidents, the party has been led by liberal thinkers and politicians including Benigno Aquino Jr., Jovito Salonga, Raul Daza, Florencio Abad, Franklin Drilon, and Mar Roxas.

The Liberal Wing is formed due to intention of Roxas to run as president for the presidential election which he, and his supporters called and lobbied to the United States Congress to be early.

Riding on the crest of the growing wave of resentment against the Liberal Party, a move was next hatched to indict President Quirino himself.

[15] A committee of seven members of the House of Representatives, led by Congressman Agripino Escareal, drafted a five-count complaint that ranged from exorbitant spending to nepotism.

A seven-member committee led by Representative Lorenzo Sumulong was created by Speaker Eugenio Pérez to investigate the charges before they were submitted to the Senate, serving as an impeachment body.

[15] Following several hearings, on April 19, 1949, after a rather turbulent session that lasted all night, the congressional committee reached a verdict completely exonerating the President.

Quirino choose Fernando Lopez as vice presidential nominee while Avelino selected Senator Vicente Francisco.

Qurino and Lopez won the election over Nacionalista's Jose P. Laurel (who is the president of the Japanese puppet-Republic) and Manuel Briones, and Avelino and Francisco.

[24][25] Quirino's campaign was bombarded by controversies and issues, like with one of party's member named Negros Occidental Governor Rafael Lacson, a corrupt politician who killed Moises Padilla, his challenger in 1951 elections, and friend of Magsaysay which popularized by a photograph taken with Magsaysay carrying Padilla's dead body, and also being used by the latter in his campaign.

[26][27] Another issues like he allegedly own a golden arinola, corruption and nepotism, being out of touch to the mass due to his lavish lifestyle, and unresolving the Huk rebellion.

In a four-way race, Yulo lost to incumbent Garcia, but Macapagal managed to defeat former House Speaker Pepito Laurel.

[35][36] Those bribed money are from a businessman named Harry Stonehill,[37] a former military officer of the United States who settled in the Philippines to make business.

[39] But while Justice Secretary Jose "Pepe" Diokno investigated the scandal,[40] Macapagal ordered the deportation of Stonehill, but the president's trust rating still plummeting.

After Diosdado Macapagal's announcement of plan for re-election in 1965, Marcos, like what Magsaysay did, jumped into Nacionalista Party by April 1964, and selected as its presidential nominee.

During the days leading to his declaration of martial law, Marcos would find his old party as a potent roadblock to his quest for one-man rule.

Led by Ninoy Aquino, Gerry Roxas and Jovito Salonga, the LP would hound President Marcos on issues like human rights and the curtailment of freedoms.

Even after Marcos' declaration of martial law silenced the LP, the party continued to oppose the regime, and many of its leaders and members would be prosecuted and even killed during this time.

[48] After Marcos lifted Martial Law with Proclamation 2045, on January 17, 1981,[49] Liberal joined United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO), the main coalition of the opposition.

[50] Liberal stalwarts joined UNIDO with Nacionalista, and PDP-Laban members, they supported the candidacy of Cory Aquino and Doy Laurel for the 1986 election.

[56] After democracy was restored after the People Power Revolution, some of the Liberal stalwarts was instrumental in ending more than half a century of US military presence in the Philippines with its campaign in the 1991 senate to reject a new RP-US Bases Treaty.

In 1998, Liberal fielded Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim as their presidential candidate, with Serge Osmeña as his running mate.

[58][59] But the tandem lost to Vice President Joseph Estrada and Senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, daughter of their 1961 presidential nominee respectively.

[46][47] After Estrada being kicked out of the Presidency, Liberal joined the administration's People Power Coalition for the 2001 elections, with former Quezon City councilor Kiko Pangilinan and former Senator Bobby Tañada as the party's senatorial candidate.

Liberal met on November 27, 2007, to decide who would succeed Franklin Drilon as the party president and to hold an election for his replacement.

[96][9] It also advocates and supports secure jobs, food, shelter, universal health care, public education access, and other social services, and is against extrajudicial killings, any challenge to the rule of law, and curtailments of human rights strictures.

[97][98] Senator Leila de Lima, who led an investigation into alleged extrajudicial deaths in the early months of Duterte's war on drugs, was issued an arrest warrant in 2017 based on charges linked to the New Bilibid Prison drug trafficking scandal, which the party claimed was based on trumped-up charges, labelling the arrest "patently illegal".

[123][122][121][124][125] Senator De Lima has been fully acquitted of all criminal charges on June 24, 2024,[126] marking the end of her legal battle and detention that lasted over six years.

The party denounced the allegation and called it a state-sponsored threat of legal abuse, demanding the government provide evidence to back the claims.