Francis Pancratius Nepomuceno Pangilinan was born on August 24, 1963 in Manila to Donato Tongol Pangilinan, Jr., an engineer and entrepreneur from Pampanga, and Emma Monasterial Nepomuceno, a public school teacher from Nueva Ecija and Marinduque. He has eight siblings.

He completed his elementary education at La Salle Green Hills in 1977. He completed his secondary education still in La Salle Green Hills in 1981.

As a student activist against the Marcos dictatorship, he ran and won as councilor of the UP University Student Council under the student party SAMASA (Sandigan para sa Mag-aaral at Sambayanan or Pillar for Students and the People) in 1985. He was later elected chairperson of the UP USC and became the first student representative at the UP Board of Regents.

He served as chairman of the UP Diliman University Student Council in 1986 under the student political party SAMASA and was the first Student Regent of the UP Board of Regents in 1987. He was elected Philippine representative to the Committee on Youth Cooperation of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

He entered mainstream politics in 1988 in the first free electoral exercise after the Marcos dictatorship. He was elected the youngest councilor of Quezon City. In 1992, he lost in the congressional elections in Quezon City.

He married actress and television personality Sharon Cuneta on April 28, 1996. Together, they have two daughters and one adopted son. He is also the stepfather of actress and singer KC Concepcion, Cuneta’s daughter whom he legally adopted.

In 1997, he left the country for Boston, Massachusetts, along with his wife Sharon Cuneta and daughter, to pursue his Master of Public Administration at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government where he graduated with a general average of A-.

In 1997, he finished his post-graduate studies at the Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government with a degree of Master of Science in Public Administration with an area of concentration in Strategic Management.

Pangilinan was elected to the senate in 2001 and was re-elected six years thereafter.

The Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations (TAYO) Awards, established in 2002 to recognize young people’s initiatives in public service and nation-building, was his brainchild.

He was first elected as Senate Majority Leader in 2004. On July 23, 2007, Jinggoy Estrada was voted Senate president pro tempore, while Pangilinan was the majority leader following the assumption of Manuel Villar to the chamber’s leadership of the 14th Congress.

Formed in 2008, Pangilinan created the Judicial Executive Legislative Advisory and Consultative Council, first proposed on the July 16–17, 2007 Manila Hotel Summit on extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines.

When he chaired the Senate Committee on Agriculture in 2010, he was able to speak to farmers all over the country and was inspired to start his own small farm, from which he learned this insight: the success of the country lies in the success of the poorest in Philippine society—our farmers and fishers, our food producers.

In May 2014, Pangilinan was appointed as Presidential Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization – a Cabinet-level position under the Office of the President of the Philippines – by President Benigno Aquino III. In September 2015, Pangilinan announced his resignation from the post.

After winning in the 2016 senatorial elections, Pangilinan continued his advocacy in agriculture. He was part of the minority bloc in the Senate together with Senators Franklin Drilon, Risa Hontiveros, Leila de Lima, and former Senators Bam Aquino and Antonio Trillanes. His most recent law was RA 11321 or the Sagip Saka Act, which he principally authored and principally sponsored in the Senate. Sagip Saka aims increase farmers’ income by empowering them and connecting them to the market. The law was signed on April 17, 2019.

As OPAFSAM head, he pushed for the creation of the coco levy trust fund for coconut farmers—in an attempt to correct the injustice started by Marcos and his cronies who collected taxes from the farmers purportedly to develop the industry. In 2016, he pursued the same advocacy in his third term at the Senate. But after he and fellow opposition senators were removed from the Senate majority, and subsequently lost the chairpersonship of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, he continued to defend the coco levy trust fund bill with new committee chairperson Sen. Cynthia Villar agreeing to let him finish work he has started.

In October 2016, he was appointed interim Liberal Party president. His appointment became permanent in August 2017.