Manuel "Lito" Mercado Lapid (Tagalog: [manˈwel ˈlito ˈlapid]; born October 25, 1955)[2] is a Filipino actor, director and politician serving as a Senator since 2019, and previously from 2004 to 2016.

In 2015, he was charged for graft over his alleged involvement in the 2004 Fertilizer Fund scam while he was governor of Pampanga, but the case was dismissed in 2016 by the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court due to the "inordinate delay" in the investigation.

[3][4] In the 1992 general election he ran under the opposition block Nationalist People's Coalition as vice governor of Pampanga, and defeated the incumbent vice governor Cielo Macapagal-Salgado.

After the impeachment of President Joseph Estrada in 2000 and the second EDSA Revolution the following year, he ran again for his final term and won.

[3] During the 2004 Senatorial elections, the then-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo encouraged Lapid to run as a senator under the administration coalition K4.