Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago

7/27/2019 Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago

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Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago

Asian Nobel Prize Laureate

Miriam Defensor Santiago became globally famouswith her courageous and brilliant crusade againstcorruption in the Philippines. As a result, at 43, she

was named Laureate of the Asian Nobel Prize, knownas the Ramon Magsaysay Award for GovernmentService. She was cited "for bold and moral leadershipin cleaning up a graft-ridden government agency."

Miriam was widely featured in the international pressbecause of her charisma, flamboyant personality, and her signature witticisms,making her good copy. In 1997, the Australian magazine named her one of "The100 Most Powerful Women in the World." In later years, Miriam was keynotespeaker of the international anticorruption conference in Sydney, Australia.

As senator, she sponsored and secured ratification by the Philippine Senate ofthe UN Convention Against Corruption.

Miriam ran for President of the Philippines in 1992, and led in the canvass ofnationwide votes for the first five days. But she was ultimately defeated by amargin of less than a million votes out of 36 million votes. The campaign wasreportedly marred by widespread election fraud, notably power blackouts after

the first five days. The public outrage over the presidential results promptedNewsweek to feature her and her rival on the cover with the question: "Was

the Election Fair?" In another cover story, Philippine Free Press magazineasked: "Who's the Real President,.?


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Child ProdigyMiriam was born in 1945 in Iloilo City, in southern Philippines. Her father

Benjamin was a district trial judge, and her mother Dimpna was a college dean.

She is the eldest of seven children, most of whom she helped to send throughcollege.

Miriam graduated valedictorian of the La Paz Elementary School, andvaledictorian of the Iloilo Provincial National High School, also earning amedal for all-around excellence. In high school, she proved to be a childprodigy. As a freshman, she won as champion of a Spelling Bee which includedseniors. Also still a freshman, she topped written examinations and wasappointed by a faculty panel as editor-in-chief of the high school paper, a postwhich she held for four years. She was high school swimming champion for the

entire province during competitions sponsored by the Red Cross. She toppedthe National College Entrance Examinations for the Western Visayas region.

Record-Setter at University of the Philippines VisayasAt 16, Miriam enrolled as freshman at the University of the Philippines Visayasin Iloilo City. Repeating her high school achievement as a freshman, she topped

the written examinations and was appointed editor-in-chief of the collegepaper, a post she also held for four years. She emerged champion in oratoricaland literary contests. She even held a campus beauty title as UP ROTC corpssponsor.

She finished the academic requirements in only three and a half years, insteadof four years. Nonetheless, she remained at the university for an extrasemester, which she finished with a near perfect average grade of 1.1. (In the

Philippines, 1.0 is the perfect grade.) She graduated Bachelor of Arts inpolitical science, magna cum laude. She was also recipient of the Rotary

Award for Most Outstanding Graduate.

Record-Setter at University of the Philippines Diliman


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Miriam then flew to Metro Manila to take up law at UP Diliman. As afreshman in law school, she topped written examinations and was appointededitor-in-chief of the law school paper. Eventually, she was also appointededitor of the Philippine Law Journal. She was only a freshman when she won

campus-wide elections as councilor in the University Student Council, whereshe eventually became vice-chairperson.

Miriam is best remembered in the state university for breaking a record of 50years of male dominance, by topping the written examinations and gettingappointed as the first female editor-in-chief of the nationally prominentstudent newspaper, the Philippine Collegian. She also made history by posting

the highest number of consecutive college scholarships in the state university(a college or university scholarship is equivalent to a place in the Dean's List).

Another record was that she became the only female to be appointed twice to

the campus beauty title of UP ROTC corps sponsor. Another record was thatshe twice received the Vinzons Achievement Award for excellence in studentleadership. Another record was that she became the first female to win as

Best Debater in the annual debate between UP Diliman and UP Manila lawschools.

A faculty panel chose her as one of the U.P. Ten Outstanding Coeds. Afeature story in the Manila Chronicle magazine said it all, when it describedMiriam as "super girl at the state university."

Miriam graduated Bachelor of Laws, cum laude, from the state university. Shewas valedictorian of her class at the UP Diliman campus. (At that time, therewas an evening law school for working students at UP Manila).

Record-Setter at University of MichiganAfter marriage, Miriam won the DeWitt Fellowship at the University ofMichigan law school. She finished her first semester in graduate school withan A average. On the basis of her high grades, for the first time in the lawschool's history, a graduate student was allowed to pursue a special program.

Thus, she earned the degree Master of Laws after one year, and the degreeDoctor of the Science of Jurisprudence, after only six months. Her gradesqualified her for the prestigious Barbour Scholarship. Her doctoral


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dissertation, with Prof. William W. Bishop, Jr. as supervisor, was laterpublished as Political Offences in International Law.

Lawyer and TheologianNot content with her law doctorate, Miriam later pursued postdoctoralstudies in law at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, University ofCalifornia, at Berkeley, and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.She attended the Hague Academy of Public International Law at The Hague,Netherlands, and at Sophia University, Tokyo.

Already a senator, she finished with high grades the academic requirementsfor the degree, Master of Arts in Religious Studies, at the Maryhill School of

Theology in Metro Manila. She wrote her published master's dissertation,

Christianity Versus Corruption, Political Theology of the Third World as aFellow at St. Hilda's College, Oxford. Because her book was in part critical ofthe Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines, she was asked to rewrite somechapters,

Public ServiceAt 25, Miriam was invited to join big Makati law firms. But she chosegovernment service, as special assistant to the Secretary of Justice who,under Philippine law, is the official legal adviser of the executive branch.

Later, in the same position, she was tapped as one of the speechwriters ofPresident Ferdinand Marcos, a lawyer.

Not content with working full-time as a lawyer, Miriam also took on a teachingpost in the evening. She was professor of political science in Trinity College,and eventually professor of law in UP Diliman. She held down a third job as anopinion columnist for a Sunday magazine and later in life, in a national daily.

Prolific Author


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In her starting years as a lawyer, Miriam began to write law books. She alsowrote two autobiographies, Inventing Myself and Cutting Edge: The Politicsof Reform in the Philippines. She has written some 30 textbooks in law and in

the social sciences, particularly political science and philosophy. In her Code

Annotated Series, she annotated the major codes of law in her country(Constitution, Rules of Court, Civil Code, Penal Code, etc.) with decisions ofthe Supreme Court. The Series, widely used in law schools and in the judiciary,will undergo second editions in 2007. Her books are listed in the US Library ofCongress.

She is acknowledged by the media and fellow senators as an expert inconstitutional and international law.

United Nations OfficerWhen the Secretary of Justice was promoted to associate justice of theSupreme Court, he requested that Miriam should be seconded to the SupremeCourt as his law clerk. For half a year, she researched and drafted legalopinions.

She then flew to Geneva, Switzerland where she served as legal officer of the

United Nations High Commission for Refugees, assigned to the treaties andconferences section. As a UN officer, she took French classes. Her buddingUN career was cut short, when her father contracted terminal cancer,forcing her to resign. Serving as a caregiver at his bedside, she accepted part-

time work as legal consultant of the UP Law Center.

After her father's death, she briefly worked as legal consultant to thePhilippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. But in 1993, during the national judicialreorganization, she returned to Metro Manila to take up a new post as

egional Trial Court judge of Quezon City.

Most Decorated Trial Judge


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Miriam's appointment to the trial court in Metro Manila was exceptional,because newcomers are usually appointed in the provinces before they areconsidered qualified to sit in Metro Manila trial courts. She soon proved hermettle, by decreeing that she would not entertain any motions to postpone

trial. Postponements are the bane of the Philippine judiciary, thus delayingustice.

As a freshman judge, Miriam disposed of the highest number of cases in MetroManila. Her reputation for integrity, competence, and efficiency becameestablished, and she was showered with awards for judicial excellence fromcivic groups, notably as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Professionals of

the Philippine Jaycees, and the Ten Outstanding Women in the Nation'sService of the Philippine Lions.

Her awards for judicial excellence, added to her awards for anticorruptionwork as immigration commissioner, make Miriam the most awarded Filipinopublic official today.

National ProminenceMiriam first rose to national prominence, when a case was raffled to hercourt, involving an arrest warrant called Preventive Detention Action issuedduring the martial law regime of President Marcos. A group of university

students, mostly from UP and Ateneo de Manila University, accompanied by agroup of the religious and of film luminaries, staged a public assembly inQuezon City. They protested not only an oil price hike, but also the allegedextravagance of the First Lady. They were all promptly thrown in jail, placing

the students in danger of missing their final examinations for that semester.The students sued for release, and the case was raffled to Miriam.

At that time, judges were afraid to rule against any martial law edict. Theprosecution presented so many witnesses that it would have been impossible tofinish trial, before the week of the final exams for the university students. ButMiriam suspended her regular calendar of trials, and proceeded to conductmarathon hearings on the case.

Her eventual decision to release the students was hailed as a courageous act


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that stressed judicial independence, even during a martial law situation. Shebecame a national heroine to all university students, and earned the grudgingrespect even of the martial law administrators.

International ProminenceAfter the first People Power revolution, President Marcos was forced intoexile and replaced by President Corazon Aquino, a former housewife whoseassassinated husband had been the leading opposition leader during martiallaw. The new president plucked Miriam out of the judiciary, and gave her themission of cleaning up the notoriously corrupt Commission on Immigration andDeportation.

Miriam rose to the challenge, and launched an anticorruption crusade that

took the Filipinos' breath away. Described as "a breath of fresh air," shebecame an overnight sensation. She ordered lightning raids on criminalsyndicates that had made the Philippines notorious as the fake passportcapital of Asian. She filled the immigration detention center to bursting withforeign criminals engaged in the pedophile industry, smuggling of illegal aliens,including prostitutes, import and export of illicit firearms and dangerousdrugs, and even operatives of the infamous Yakuza.

Almost every week, the media were full of Miriam's successful exploits against

criminal syndicates. At this point, she earned the wrathful resentment ofpoliticians who are patrons and benefactors of certain criminal syndicates.

For her extraordinary success in the capture of fugitives from justice, certaingovernments, such as the US, Australia, and Japan, invited Miriam to theircountries to share her expertise in the enforcement of immigration law.

Darling of the PressMiriam became the darling of the press, both national and international. She

was featured by TIME, The Economist, New York Times, Washington Post,and International Herald Tribune, among others. She graced dozens ofmagazine covers. They tried to capture her colorful personality with suchaccolades as: the incorruptible lady, the iron lady of Asia, the dragon lady, theplatinum lady, and the undisputed campus heroine. Her intense and passionateorations against corruption captured the public imagination. On the invitation


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of universities and civic groups, she began a hectic nationwide speaking tourthat would continue for at least one decade.

At the height of her popularity, Miriam's charisma could cause shopping malls

to close down for the day, and could cause traffic to snarl. On one weekendwhen she went shopping at a Quezon City mall, she attracted such a hugethrong of autograph seekers that virtually the entire mall closed down,because store owners were afraid that the crowd might turn into anuncontrollable mob. This was duly reported in media.

On one holiday, when she went to the mountaintop resort of Baguio City, theentire downtown traffic went into gridlock. The traffic cop recognized her at

the wheel of her car, and stopped traffic to greet her. All other car ownersand bus drivers then left their vehicles to shake her hand, and traffic became

so snarled that the mobile patrol unit had to be called to restore order.

Her famous quips have been captured in the book Miriam Dictionary. Sheonce told media: "I eat death threats for breakfast." When a congressmandelivered a privilege speech against her for a lightning group arrest of foreignpedophiles occupying a village in his district, Miriam called him "fungus face."She was famous for describing her anticorruption work as needing "theepidermis of a pachyderm" and "intestinal fortitude." Filipinos were delightedwhen, on TV, she told a foreigner charged with pedophilia: "Sir, I represent the

majesty of the Republic of the Philippines. Now shut up, or I'll bash your teethin!"

Finally, the ultimate recognition of her dangerous and backbreaking workcame. The Magsaysay Awards Foundation named her in 1988, Laureate of the

Asian Nobel Prize, known as the Magsaysay Award for Government Service.Thus, she joined the elite of Asian heroes who have dedicated their lives topublic service.

One amusing postscript to Miriam's reign as "queen of popularity polls" was theconstant media mention of her acclaimed beautiful legs. After she left theCabinet, she gave a poolside interview to a reporter of the Daily Inquirer,which featured Miriam seated by the pool hugging her legs. This photo became

the talk of the town, and without her permission, was used by an enterprisinggroup of young Makati businessmen as a calendar photo.


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Assassination AttemptMiriam's popularity was so widespread among the youth, the yuppies, and thepoor that politicians begun to feel threatened. As a result, she became the

subject of character assassination and black propaganda, manufactured outof sheer lies and fabrications by highly paid public relations firms.

Because her millions of fans call her a genius, her political enemies tried topeddle the desperate charge that she is eccentric. Because her fans adore hercharisma, her political enemies called her intellectually arrogant. Because herfans call her a fighter, her enemies dubbed her as a non-team player.

Her fans were so outraged at the political malice being thrown in their idol'sdirection that they begin to agitate that Miriam should run for president. At

first, Miriam treated the subject as a joke. But she began to top presidentialsurveys by all national survey firms, as well as campus presidential surveysconducted by student organizations all over the country.

When she became a real political threat to the traditional politicians, she wassuddenly victimized in a car crash that remains unsolved up to the present. On

the highway during a speaking tour, Miriam suffered life-threatening injuries,after a car rammed her vehicle on the side where she was seated. Bloodied andunconscious, she was airlifted by helicopter from Tarlac to Metro Manila and

taken to the Metropolitan Hospital, where a stream of her fans visited daily,although they were refused admittance. They left flowers, anyway.

Her staff decided not to reveal the true extent of Miriam's injuries, so as notto prejudice her presidential chances. But she was completely immobile andcould not walk nor even move her arms. Her facial injuries made it impossiblefor her to talk, and she had to communicate by writing. She underwentsurgery, during which she had a near-death experience.


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Political PersecutionWhile Miriam was physically incapacitated, her enemies in the administrationfiled charges against her with the antigraft court. The charges were ironic,

because they consisted of the very same anticorruption programs, for whichshe had earned the Magsaysay Award.

Thus, she was prevented from leaving the country to avail of a MasonFellowship granted her by the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard.Thereafter, for the next seven years, she was placed under a hold-departureorder, only to be finally acquitted for absence of any evidence on the part of

the prosecution.

Her humility and courage in bearing political persecution endeared her even

more to her fans, and her presidential candidacy became inevitable.

Political PhenomenonAfter she was discharged from hospital, Miriam was forced to remainconfined at home. Thus, a few months later, when she resumed her speaking

tour of the nation, she had become a martyr to the murderous malice ofcorrupt politicians.

In her public speeches, Miriam had always twitted the political parties forbeing beholden to campaign contributors. She despised traditional politiciansfor placing political protgs in revenue-producing offices, where the politicalappointees could earn illicit incomes that they shared with their politicalpatrons. Hence, she disdained to join any established political party.

Instead, she organized a completely new one, the People's Reform Party, whichshe headed as president. She then fielded a national senatorial ticket andcandidates at the local level. Miriam's PRP carried out an unorthodoxcampaign. Because she had no party funding, she called on university students

to campaign house to house for her, and to literally construct her rallyplatforms from secondhand lumber. Unlike other parties that rented theircrowds, Miriam's PRP attracted mammoth crowds and sometimes hystericalmobs, on the sheer strength of her personality.Twice or thrice, while Miriam


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voting but lost in the counting." Media exposs later revealed that she wascheated by the Sulo Hotel Operations Group of the administration candidate.

This Group, operating in a hotel near the Congress, was able to get advancecopies of provincial canvass certificates, and to switch the high votes of

Miriam with the low votes of her closest rival.

This process of vote-switching between a winner and a runner-up was dubbedin later elections as "Operation Dagdag-Bawas." This term means Operation

Add-Subtract, a reference to the subtraction of votes from the real winner,and the simultaneous addition of her subtracted votes to the column of votesfor her rival.

Miriam refused to concede victory to her opponent, and instead filed anelection protest with the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, which is also the

Philippine Supreme Court. She mortgaged her law office to pay for the judicialfees.

Her rival, already the newly-proclaimed president, moved to avert the brewingpolitical crisis caused by the electoral fraud accusations. He postponed theopening of classes in Metro Manila, to prevent the youth from taking to thestreets in protest. An official from Malacaang Palace (the president's office),called up university administrators in Metro Manila to instruct them toprohibit student organizations from inviting Miriam as guest speaker.

Even the press downplayed her electoral protest, as the administration's PRfirms set to work against her. Except for the young people, businessmen stayedaway from her, for fear of harassment from the administration. And theadministration's paid hacks in the notoriously corrupt media worked overtime

to continue their attempts to discredit Miriam.

In addition to the trumped-up charges filed against her in court, Miriam wasthreatened by the military. A group of men and women in military uniformsstormed Miriam's house, at a time when she was supposed to be home withdengue fever. However, unknown to her assailants, Miriam had decided at the


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last minute to deliver a speech at a Manila university. The armed group tied upall the househelp and overturned Miriam's clothes closet and dresser, in anattempt to make it appear as a robbery. But the real intent was to intimidateher to keep quiet on her electoral protest.

Unsinkable MiriamDespite the unremitting campaign of a powerful administration to harass herwith trumped-up charges and armed invasions, Miriam refused her rival's oft-repeated public offers of "reconciliation." She refused to recognize him as aduly-elected president. Instead, she coined the term "snowpake president,"because in many canvass certificates, her votes had been erased with whitesnowpake correctional ink.

Despite alleged offers from the Office of the President for a financial rewardto every mayor who could keep Miriam out of the winning circle in hismunicipality, Miriam won her first term as senator in 1995. She earned herlaurels in the Senate, by unremitting exposs which were vindicated byinvestigative reporting by the press in subsequent years.

For example, after he left the presidency, the press uncovered alleged massivecorruption in her rival's expensive pet projects, such as the grant of exorbitantcontracts to independent power producers, the huge financial losses incurred

in a widely-touted Centennial City which never got finished, and the allegedillegal disposition of expensive reclaimed land along the Manila Bay shoreline, infavor of presidential cronies.

Media reported Miriam to be an outstanding senator. She was always amongthe yearly topnotchers in number of bills filed. But she is most impressiveduring Senate debates, with her meticulous preparation and searchinginterpellations. She is warmly regarded by both administration and oppositionsenators, although some fear her independence of mind.

Miriam was the first senator in Philippine political history to decline a porkbarrel allocation, on the ground that it was unconstitutional because it lackedan appropriation law, thus creating headlines. She was also the first legislator

to expose building contractors who solicited public works projects fromCongress members, with a promise to give an advance ten percent kickback.


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Standing by the Rule of Law

As senator, Miriam became an ally of President Joseph Ejercito Estrada, aformer movie actor. He was impeached by the House of Representatives, and

tried by the Senate as an impeachment court. Miriam was the only one of 24senators who had served in the judiciary. As a former trial judge, she insisted

that Estrada should be granted due process of law. Instead, the impeachmenttrial was never concluded and Estrada, like Marcos, was overthrown byanother People Power revolution which installed President Gloria Macapagal

Arroyo, an economist.

Under a new administration, Miriam ran on the Estrada opposition ticket, and

again led during the early days of the canvass of votes. But eventually, hervotes were whittled down, and it appeared that she was again cheated in theelections. By this time, Estrada was already in detention as the accused in aplunder case.

In the next elections, Estrada handpicked another movie actor to run forpresident. Miriam objected, and instead ran for senator under President

Arroyo's ticket. In 2004, Miriam won her second term as senator. She chairstwo powerful committees: the energy committee, and the foreign relations

committee.

She is also one of President Arroyo's most trusted legal advisers. In late 2006, agroup of young lawyers nominated her for Chief Justice of the SupremeCourt. But she reportedly gave way to the senior associate justice, saying thatshe was too young for the post.

Personal TragedyMiriam's husband Narciso Y. Santiago Jr. from Tarlac, nicknamed "Jun," serves


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as presidential adviser on revenue enhancement. Under President Estrada, Junserved as undersecretary of local government. The couple has two birthchildren, Narciso III and Alexander Robert.

Miriam lost her younger son in November 2003. He was only 22 years old andwas on the Dean's List at the Ateneo University. In the years that followedher personal tragedy, Miriam's irreparable grief manifested itself as a healthfailure, including a minor stroke (thankfully without lingering effects),hypertension, pinched nerves, high cholesterol, and most recently, unexplainedanorexia (an eating disorder) which caused her to lose weight.

Political IconHer diehard supporters still hope that Miriam will run again in the 2010

presidential elections. But she has implied that reforming a corrupt system haslost its challenge, maybe because she has not yet healed from the loss of herbeloved son.Miriam has turned into a cult figure, and fans consider her a living legend in

Philippine politics. She creates a stir when she appears in shopping malls ortrade exhibits, provoking fans to whip out cellphones and go on a photo andautograph frenzy. No other politician in the country, despite wealth orpopularity, has received the universal admiration she evokes as a brilliant,principled politician with a wicked sense of humor. She remains feisty and

controversial, as she weaves her unique brand of what media calls "MiriamMagic," the noble appeal to idealism in the hurly-burly world of politics in adeveloping country.

Documents

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago