Who’s The Next President? (5th of a Series) MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO: THE FIERY LAWYER WHO ALMOST BECAME 2ND WOMAN PRESIDENT

By Manny Pinol

In 1992, a young and flamboyant woman lawyer who made a name as a no-nonsense Immigration Commissioner and secretary of agrarian reform, made a brave stab at the presidency.

Propped up by legions of fans who wanted somebody who appeared and sounded different to be the leader of the country, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, then only 47 years old, soared in the surveys and looked headed for Malacanang.

This, in spite of the label that she was a “Brenda,” a derogatory word coined by those who claim that Miriam was psychologically unfit to become president because she was mentally unstable.

“Brenda” meant “brain damaged.”

The youth was fascinated by her ascerbic, funny, and scathing rhetorics.

When a congressman delivered a privilege speech denouncing her for a series of raids she conducted as Immigration Commissioner, she called him “Fungus Face” and suggested that the congressman stuck his finger in an electric outlet.

But many others too are irritated and offended by her tactless pronouncements and her propensity to shoot from the hips in making her accusations.

I was one of those victimized by Miriam’s “shoot-now-ask-later” attitude.

When she became senator after the 1992 presidential elections, she included me in the list of Governors who allegedly protected or were behind illegal logging operations.

In including me in the list of the illegal logging protectors, she based her accusation on the huge volume of illegal forest products seized in the province at the time I was Governor.

Had she prudently investigated, she would have discovered that the reason why there was so much illegal logs confiscated in North Cotabato was because we had just enacted a Provincial Environment Code which focused on a massive campaign against illegal logging among others.

Also, a provincial ordinance passed during the campaign prohibited the passage along the Cotabato highways of logs and forest products coming from neighboring Maguindanao province.

It was because of that ordinance that police seized and impounded 18 cargo trucks loaded with timber and flitches.

But even when she was proven wrong about her accusation against me, there was not even a squeak from Miriam or an apology.

Back in 1992, Miriam was predicted to become president because of the survey figures.

There was, however, one very important factor which denied her the Presidency: the endorsement of President Corazon Aquino who endorsed her former defense secretary, Fidel V. Ramos.

Ramos won the presidency by the slimmest of margins and Miriam filed a protest which was thrashed when she decided to run for the Senate in 1995.

While she has grown older, Miriam has remained just as fiery but more unpredictable.

She is an incumbent Senator but refuses to attend the Senate sessions claiming she is sick. Lately, she attended the session to deliver a privilege speech unprecedented in the Senate’s history where she denounced a fellow senator calling him a sex pervert and all other names.

In spite of that unpredictability, Miriam remains a power to reckon with in national politics because of her popularity.

Today, 22 years after she almost became President of the Philippines, people are still asking: “What kind of President Miriam Defensor-Santiago would have been?”

People will know the answer should they decide to make her President in 2016.

Here is what en.wikipedia.org says about Miriam Defensor-Santiago:

Miriam Defensor Santiago (born June 15, 1945) is a Judge of the International Criminal Court and a member of the Senate of the Philippines.

She is a lawyer, former trial judge, and lecturer on constitutional and international law. She served as the Commissioner of the Philippine Bureau of Immigration and Deportation in 1988 and the Secretary of the Philippines’ Department of Agrarian Reform from 1989 to 1991.

She is the founder and current leader of the center-right People’s Reform Party formerly allied with former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the 2004 elections,[1] and is a recipient of “the Asian Nobel Prize” — [2][3]the Ramon Magsaysay Award given by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation — for government service; she was cited “for bold and moral leadership in cleaning up a graft-ridden government agency” during her tenure as the head of the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation.[4]

Defensor Santiago ran for President of the Philippines in 1992; she led the nationwide canvassing of votes for a few days, but was defeated by a margin of less than several hundred thousand votes.

The campaign was reportedly marred by widespread election fraud, notably power blackouts after the first five days. She filed an electoral protest, which was dismissed in 1995 when she ran for and won a seat in the Philippine Senate.[5]

Early life and education

Born Miriam Palma Defensor on June 15, 1945 in La Paz district, Iloilo City, she grew and lived with her parents. Her father, Benjamin A. Defensor was a district trial judge, and her mother Dimpna Palma Defensor, a school teacher. She is the eldest of seven children.

She graduated Valedictorian of the 120 student La Paz Elementary School, and Valedictorian of the Iloilo Provincial High School, also earning a medal for all-around exuberance. In high school, her parents considered her to be a child prodigy. As a freshman, she won a Spelling Bee.

In 1965, Santiago graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, ‘Magna Cum Laude’ from the University of the Philippines Visayas. It took her only three and a half years to complete her degree. After graduation, she was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu and Phi Kappa Phi sororities.[6]

She became the first female editor of a student newspaper, The Philippine Collegian and was twice made ROTC muse.[7]

She also taught Law subjects at Trinity College now known as Trinity University of Asia, and University of the Philippines as part-time job.[8][9][9]

She earned a Bachelor of Laws degree, ‘Cum laude’, from the University of the Philippines College of Law in Diliman. Santiago pursued higher learning, earned an LL.M. after only 6 months, instead of 2 years and an S.J.D. after only 1 year, instead of 2 years from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with flying colors.

She has also attended other prestigious international universities including Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Awards.

In 1986, Santiago was recognized as one of the Five Outstanding Professionals of the Philippine Junior Chamber of Commerce. In 1988, she sought and won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service for her graft-busting performance as Commissioner of Immigration and Deportation [12] In 1996, the Australian Women’s Magazine ranked Santiago 69th among The 100 Most Powerful Women in the World[13]

Private career

Santiago was an instructor in political science in Trinity College of Quezon City from 1971 to 1974 and concurrently Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of Justice from 1970 to 1980. She was also a member of the Board of Censors for Motion Pictures from 1977 to 1979. She served as a legal staffer of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1979 to 1980. She was also one of the legal aides at the Washington, D.C. office.

She was Trial Court Judge from 1983 to 1987.

She also taught Law at the University of the Philippines from 1976 to 1988.[9] From 1992 to 1995 and from 2001 to 2004, she has lectured at the University of Perpetual Help System DALTA.[14]

In 2011, after two year-long government lobbying campaign spearheaded by the Dept. of Foreign Affairs , she announced that she had won a seat in the International Criminal Court and would assume her position as one of its eighteen judges on March 2012.

Political career

Commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation

Santiago was appointed by President Corazon Aquino as Commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation in 1988, and is tasked by Aquino to clean this graft-ridden government agency. She served in that capacity until 1989.[5]

Miriam rose to the challenge. She ordered lightning raids on criminal syndicates and fake passport creators. She filled the immigration detention center to bursting with foreign criminals engaged in the pedophile industry, smuggling of illegal aliens including prostitutes, import and export of illicit firearms and dangerous drugs, and even operatives of the infamous Yakuza. She also fired numerous corrupt employees during her tenure as commissioner.[16]

When a congressman delivered a privilege speech against her for a raid that arrested foreign pedophiles occupying a village in his district, Santiago called him, “Fungus Face”, and publicly urged him to “stick his finger in the electric socket.”[5][18]

Secretary of Agrarian Reform

President Aquino appointed Santiago as Secretary of Agrarian Reform[20][21] in 1989. The president ordered her “to put everything in place, institute reforms and help plug loopholes in the present agrarian reform law.”

1992 Presidential Election

After President Corazon Aquino declared her intention not to seek another term in the 1992 elections, Santiago ran for president, seeking Aquino’s endorsement. She founded the People’s Reform Party as her vehicle, inviting Ramon Magsaysay, Jr. to be her running mate. The party did not have any other candidates at the national level, and it endorsed only two local candidates Alfredo Lim and Lito Atienza for the position of mayor and vice mayor ofManila. Aquino decided instead to back her Secretary of National Defense Fidel V. Ramos in his bid for the presidency.

Santiago was leading the canvassing of votes for the first five days. Following a string of power outages, the tabulation concluded, and Ramos was declared President-elect. Santiago filed a protest before the electoral tribunal citing the power outages during the counting of votes as evidence of massive fraud. Her election protest was eventually dismissed. Many believed that this election was marred by fraud because of the nationwide power outages.

Senator of the Philippines

First term (1995–2001)

Santiago ran for the Senate of the Philippines in 1995 elections, again as a candidate of her own People’s Reform Party. She was elected to the senate and served as a senator from 1995 to 2001.

As a Senator, Santiago became a vocal critic of the Ramos Administration. She filed the most number of bills in the Senate during her term. Santiago again ran for president in the 1998 elections and invited former Marcos crony Francisco Tatad to be her running mate. Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino candidate but lost by a landslide and Joseph Estrada won the election and became president. After losing the election, Santiago returned to the Senate.[5]

In 2001 Santiago ran for reelection but lost.

Second term (2004–2010)

For the 2004 elections, Santiago ran again for senator, this time joining President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Koalisyon ng Katapatan at Karanasan sa Kinabukasan (K4) coalition. The Philippine Star wrote that “Santiago’s turncoat move was a surprise to many, especially since she is associated with former President Joseph Estrada, whom she supported when he was impeached by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate (back in 2001).”

The report added that Santiago was initially considered to be Fernando Poe, Jr.’s running-mate for the 2004 Philippine presidential election but she declined, saying “she could not run in the same ticket with the likes of Legarda.” Legarda is (sic) one of Estrada’s leading critics during the former’s impeachment trial.[1]

However, the real reason of her switching coalition is because Estrada handpicked another movie actor to run for president, which is why she objected, and instead ran for senator under the administration’s ticket. In 2004, Miriam won her second term as senator.

In late 2006, a group of her former students nominated her for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. All candidates were requested by the Judicial and Bar Council, the nominating body, to submit an application and bio-data and undergo an interview. No one showed up but Santiago. Deeply humiliated, she threw a series of public tantrums and tried to save face by saying she would give way to the senior associate justice, because at age 61 she was “too young for the post”.[22]

She chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Energy from 2004-2008.[26] When Manuel Villar resigned as Senate President, Santiago lost the chairmanship of the energy committee, and was demoted to the committee on economic affairs.[27]

Third term (2010–2016)

Santiago ran for reelection in the Philippine Senate election, 2010 under the her PRP and as a guest candidate for six different political parties.[28] She finished third among other senatorial candidates had more than 17 million votes.[29]

In 2012, Santiago proved to be the most important personality in the Impeachemt trial of the Chief Justice Renato Corona. On the last day of the first part of the impeachment trial, she was antagonistic towards the prosecution lawyer, Vitaliano Aguirre, when Aguirre’s rude and contemptuous gesture taunts to her on national TV. She, along with fellow Senators Joker Arroyo and Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., were the only three persons to vote to acquit the chief magistrate.

Also in 2012, Santiago sponsored two controversial bills: Sin Tax

Reform Act of 2012 (with Sen. Franklin Drilon) and the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 (with Sen. Pia Cayetano).

In early 2013, Santiago began a feud with Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile when the latter was alleged to give a PhP 1 million to his allied senators as Christmas bonus. Sen. Antonio Trillanes took her side on the issue.

Election to the International Criminal Court

On December 12, 2011, Senator Santiago was elected to a nine-year tenure as judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC).[30][31] Although she is currently listed as a judge by the ICC,[32] she has yet to take her oath and assume her office there. Santiago was absent during the March 9, 2012, oath-taking of new judges due to medical reasons, citing her elevated blood pressure and bone marrow aplasia, but later went on to reveal that she had written the president of the ICC to request that she be the last of the six newly elected judges to take her post to allow her more time to fulfill her responsibilities as a senator.[33][34]

Personal life

Miriam Defensor is married to Narciso Santiago. They have 2 adopted daughters and 2 biological sons.

Her youngest son Alexander Robert “AR” Santiago, [4] died at the age of 22 on November 20, 2003.[35]