Filipinas Mag

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While Filipino Americans in the U.S. mainland are working hard to achieve political empowerment, the State of Hawaii towers over the rest of the country as a beacon of political empowerment for the ethnic Filipino community. And one of its brightest lights is Senator Robert Bunda, State Senator and Senate President Emeritus.

A third generation Fil-Am, raised from hardy roots when his grandfather immigrated from Ilocos Norte to work in the plantations in the early 1900s, Senator Bunda is the first Filipino American to serve as president of any state legislature in the U.S.

Elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives in 1983, he served for the next ten years and then won a State Senate seat in 1994. From there, he made his way up to Senate President in 2001, a position he held for five years, up to 2006.

His long tenure in the state legislature has been marked by impressive achievements. In the State House of Representatives, he chaired the Health, Ocean and Marine Resources and Consumer Protection and Commerce Committees, for which he was named Legislator of the Year in 1993 by the Hawaii Medical Association.

His services in the Senate have been equally outstanding. He created Hawaii’s first Ocean Management Plan, co-created the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund and was the only member of the legislature to serve on the governor’s task force on educational governance.

Bobby Bunda was born in Waialua on the island of Oahu, one of six children of Sandy Bunda and Esther Miguel. He spent his pre-school days in a plantation while his father served in the U.S. army. Military service was, therefore, a logical stage of his young manhood. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War and also had stints with the Texas National Guard and the Hawaii National Guard.

He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Business from Texas, Wesleyan College in Fort Worth and pursued his graduate studies at the University of Dallas. A career as an insurance broker and as a bank executive followed. But Bobby Bunda wanted to give back to his community. Returning to Hawaii, he decided to run for the State Legislature in 1983. The rest is history.

He is married to Gail Toshie Shimao and together they have raised a brood of five children.

Having notched 26 years in the State Legislature, Senator Robert Bunda continues to have a major impact on Hawaii’s governance, for which he is being conferred the 2009 Filipinas Magazine Achievement Award for Public Affairs.

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