The candidate's top five accomplishments and contributions for the last 15 years or so

Cayetano served as vice mayor of Taguig and then Taguig-Pateros representative from 1995 to 2007. He then won two Senate races in 2007 and 2013. After a failed vice-presidential bid in 2016, he was appointed by President Duterte, his former running mate, as secretary of foreign affairs in May 2017.

During his tenure as foreign affairs secretary, Kuwait issued warrants of arrest for kidnapping against three Philippine embassy personnel in Kuwait who were accused of taking OFWs from their homes as part of rescue operations. Cayetano later insisted that the Philippine diplomats did not violate any diplomatic convention or crime, though he did acknowledge that the Philippine embassy generally doesn’t respond to distressed OFWs without coordinating with the Kuwaiti government. Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Renato Villa was also expelled and declared persona non grata due to “undiplomatic acts by Philippine embassy staff” by Kuwait.

Cayetano resigned as foreign affairs secretary in October 2018 and successfully returned to the House of Representatives.

While Cayetano was serving top posts in the executive and legislative branches of government, he also led the preparations for the 2019 SEA Games as chairman of PHISGOC.

He was appointed in 2017 by President Duterte to chair PHISGOC which registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a non-stock, non-profit group in 2018 when he was already foreign affairs secretary and continued to hold the post until he was speaker of the lower house.

His tenure was riddled with controversy, with many questioning the constitutionality of him holding another post in a private foundation while serving top posts in government as well as the P1.5 billion budget lodged under PHISGOC left to his discretion that did not undergo public bidding because it was categorized as financial assistance, exempting it from procurement law.

Another P6 billion was lodged under the Philippine Sports Commission budget in 2019. In 2018, when he was still foreign affairs secretary, he tried to have the full P7.5 billion lodged under the Department of Foreign Affairs' budget despite the department's mandate having nothing to do with sports development.

This move from Cayetano, who cited the need for expediency, was blocked by senators who caught the anomalous P7.5 billion item when the DFA's budget was already being debated in the Senate plenary. Cayetano maintained that lodging the SEA Games budget under the DFA's was backed by no less than the Palace.

Chief among the expenditures that courted public criticism were multi-billion peso New Clark City, a flagship project of the Duterte administration's Build Build Build Program, that displaced Aeta inhabitants in the area, and the P50 million cauldron used to bear the SEA Games torch.

The Bases Conversion Development Authority said it made available a financial assistance package of P300,000 to all those affected by the New Clark City project and that it provided relocation sites within the same area. Meanwhile, Cayetano defended the multi-million peso cauldron by calling it symbolic and "a work of art."

Nonetheless, in December 2019, Ombudsman Samuel Martires said he formed a fact-finding panel that would look into possible corruption in the organizing of the event that would include Cayetano and PHISGOC. Cayetano said he was willing to face the probe and was shortly after informally cleared by Duterte whose support he continues to enjoy.

In his capacity as a legislator in both chambers of Congress, Cayetano authored at least 22 laws. He legislated toward education and sports, authoring the Iskolar ng Bayan Act, the Student-Athletes Protection Act, and the University of the Philippines Charter of 2007 which he also principally sponsored.

Under Cayetano's speakership, the House of Representatives passed two stimulus packages, namely the Bayanihan 1 and 2, to offer aid to Filipinos at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The two bills also gave President Rodrigo Duterte emergency standby powers, a move that critics questioned due to its susceptibility to corruption.

He was also one of the principal defenders of the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, a bill that he railroaded through Congress, forcing many lawmakers to belatedly remove their names from the list of authors and switch their votes in response to public outcry.

Before the media, Cayetano was quick to point out that Congress can amend or repeal the law if it was abused by law enforcement. He also urged critics to allow lawmakers to go through the proposal before criticizing it, while reminding the Armed Forces of the Philippines to prevent possible abuses under the law. Once the bill was passed, though, he took on a much stronger stance, saying the government “can never let our guard down” in the fight against the communist insurgency.

Two Aeta farmers were the first to be charged under the law and were detained for a year before a court ruled that prosecution evidence was insufficient.