*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD
Writing about the First Lady, Liza Araneta Marcos, is not easy. It is walking into a storm of opinions, where every word about her can either be praised or condemned. Many see her as a woman who wields influence beyond what is proper, while others see her as a devoted wife who stands firm beside her husband, President Bongbong Marcos. But I write not to judge, nor to flatter. I write to understand—to look beyond the rumors and see the woman who, in her own way, represents both the weight and the grace of love in power.
As a single father, I have long understood what it means to protect someone you love. When you raise a child alone, every decision you make carries both strength and fear. You learn that love is not always soft; sometimes it is fierce, sometimes misunderstood. And that is what I see in the First Lady—a woman whose strength is often mistaken for control, whose love for her family is sometimes read as ambition. Yet at its core, it is still love—the kind that shields, defends, and sacrifices quietly.
In Filipino culture, the family is sacred. The wife is not just a partner; she is the heart of the home, the keeper of stability. Liza Araneta Marcos, as a wife and mother, embodies that familiar strength. She is a lawyer by training, articulate and decisive—a woman who knows the law but also understands loyalty. Perhaps that is why she is both admired and feared. In a society that often expects women to be silent, her courage to speak, decide, and stand beside her husband unsettles many.
People will always talk. Some will accuse her of meddling; others will accuse her of arrogance. But if we strip away the noise, what remains is a woman protecting her husband—not just as the President, but as the man she loves. And that, to me, is neither manipulation nor interference. It is a reflection of devotion, something every person who has ever loved deeply will understand.
No wife desires her husband’s failure. No mother wishes shame upon her family. Yet in politics, love is often weaponized. The same act of protection that would be praised in private life becomes condemned in public life. That is the First Lady’s dilemma—damned if she acts, dismissed if she stays silent. But through it all, she remains steadfast.
From where I stand, Bongbong Marcos is a very fortunate man. In times of noise and crisis, he has beside him a woman who does not abandon him, who guards his dignity, who faces the cruelty of public judgment head-on. Not all leaders are that lucky. Many stand alone when the world turns hostile. But he has a wife who absorbs the blows, who takes the gossip, and who continues to hold their family together while the rest of the nation debates their lives.
I am not writing this as someone blinded by admiration, but as someone who knows how lonely leadership can be. I have seen what it means to fight battles alone, to face public judgment while protecting someone you love. And I can only imagine how much heavier that burden is for a woman standing beside a President.
Perhaps Liza Araneta Marcos is not perfect—who among us is? But she stands as a symbol of the kind of loyalty that refuses to break even under the harshest light. Her strength may be misunderstood, her words taken out of context, but her intention seems simple: to protect her husband and their family.
And maybe that is the truth people need to see. Behind every powerful man is not just a shadow, but a light—a woman who carries the quiet strength to keep the family, and perhaps the nation, from falling apart. In that sense, Bongbong Marcos is indeed lucky—not only to have a wife, but a protector, a partner, and a steadfast believer who walks with him through the storm of public life.
