Miriam Defensor Santiago
Miriam Defensor Santiago (born
Miriam Palma Defensor on June 15, 1945) is a Judge-elect 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 allied with former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and is a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service awarded by the Junior Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.
Defensor Santiago ran for President of the Philippines
in 1992; she led the early post-election canvass of votes for a few
days, but was defeated by a margin of a million votes. She claimed that
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.
Miriam was widely featured in the international press because of her
outspokeness, flamboyant personality, and her blatant
self-propagandizing, making her good copy. In 1997, the Australian
magazine named her one of "The 100 Most Powerful Women in the World." In
later years, Miriam was keynote speaker of the international
anticorruption conference in Sydney, Australia. As senator, she
sponsored and secured ratification by the Philippine Senate of the UN
Convention Against Corruption.
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,
who there should be more women in government. She served in that
capacity until 1989.During that time, she earned enough money to fund her electoral ambitions.
During her tenure as Commissioner of Immigration, she ordered raids
on criminal syndicates and fake passport creators; prosecuted foreign
criminals engaged in the pedophile industry; smuggling of illegal
aliens, including prostitutes; import and export of illicit firearms and
dangerous drugs; and even the operatives of the Yakuza.
The persecutions would only cease when large "fines" were paid. She
also granted Filipino citizenship to thousands of Indian and Chinese
nationals for exorbitant fees.
Almost every week, the media were full of Santiago's press releases
against criminal syndicates. At this point, she earned the resentment of
politicians who are(sic) patrons and maybe benefactors of certain
syndicates;
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" which she then used as a basis for
her claim to acerbic wit and originality.
She also received threats because of the raids and being a big fan of
the 1960s era American TV series The F.B.I., told the media, "I eat
death threats for breakfast".
Secretary of Agrarian Reform
Impressed with her performance in the CID, President Aquino appointed Santiago as Secretary of Agrarian Reform
[16][17]
in 1989. The president ordered her “to put everything in place,
institute reforms and help plug loopholes in the present agrarian reform
law.”
Miriam lost no time in overhauling the department’s policies. She
instituted three major policies in agrarian reform. First, to concretize
the basic philosophy of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL),
she stressed that all doubts on the inclusion of lands in the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) should be resolved in favor
of inclusion.
Second, under her term, the DAR policy was to prefer the
contract-growing principle over the lease-back arrangement, particularly
with respect to corporate farms or plantations. Under the lease-back
arrangement, the tiller would end up as the lessor who receives rent and
remains a mere laborer of multinational corporations. In contrast, the
principle of land to the tillers would still be practiced under the
contract-growing scheme. The contract grower would have a say on how
much would be produced and in marketing the produce.
Third and most important, under her term, the DAR shifted its land
acquisition thrust from the voluntary offer-to-sell (VOS) scheme to
compulsory acquisition of lands to hasten the pace of the CARP.
The VOS scheme implemented during her predecessor’s term was riddled
with anomalies and corruption. Miriam assumed her duties when the DAR
was being rocked by the highly controversial and fraudulent Garchitorena
land deal. The former agrarian reform secretary was forced to resign
due to the scandal. One of Miriam’s first acts as agrarian reform
secretary was to halt all land transactions under the VOS method, and
order the investigation of all past and pending transactions.
Miriam sent Notices of Compulsory Acquisition to big landowners,
including relatives of President Aquino, forcing them to sell some 5,000
hectares of land in northern Tarlac province.
Miriam’s boldest move as agrarian reform secretary was to ask
President Aquino to inhibit herself from deliberations of the
Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) on the stock distribution
scheme of Hacienda Luisita. The president was the chairperson of PARC,
while Santiago was its vice chairperson.
The Cojuangcos availed themselves of the CARP’s stock-transfer option
scheme allowing the President’s family to distribute shares of stocks
to the Cojuangco corporation instead of distributing land titles from
the estate. Critics decried the scheme, saying it allowed the owners to
retain control of the estate.
Miriam endorsed to Congress an alternative “people’s agrarian reform
program” (Parcode) drafted by the Congress for People’s Agrarian Reform,
a coalition of farmers’ groups including the militant Kilusang
Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the conservative Federation of Free
Farmers (FFF). She said the Parcode was a “superior piece of
legislation” and “rational, highly logical, and consistent.” The Parcode
put land retention limits to five hectares. Under the CARL, the
retention limit was 11 hectares, which virtually exempted 75% of all
agricultural lands from land reform. Miriam’s endorsement was hailed by
farmers’ organizations.
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 of Manila. Aquino decided instead to back her Secretary of National Defense Fidel V. Ramos in his bid for the presidency.
Santiago was leading preliminary manual canvassing of votes from the
Capital Region 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. But she still believed that
this election was marred by fraud because of the nationwide power
outages,with the Asian-edition of the leftist
Newsweek
magazine placing Santiago and her rival on the cover with the question:
"Was the election fair?". This (sic) elections can be considered as the
tightest in Philippine history according to Santiago.
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 naturally became a vocal critic of the
Ramos Administration. She was also called Most Outspoken Senator as well
as many other names. 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 Ejercito Estrada won the election and became president. After losing the election, Santiago returned to the Senate.
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.
However, according to Santiago's website, it was 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. This caused public outrage and demands that she first be made to
pass a psychological fitness test. 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".
She chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Energy from 2004-2008.When Manuel Villar
resigned as Senate President, Santiago lost the chairmanship of the
energy committee, and was demoted to the committee on economic affairs.
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. She finished third among other senatorial candidates had more than 15 million votes.
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
anger to the prosecution lawyer, Vitaliano Aguirre, when Aguirre rude
taunts on national TV. She along with fellow Senators Joker Arroyo and Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. the three persons to acquit the chief magistrate.
Also in 2012, Santiago also sponsored the two controversial Sin Tax Reform Act of 2012 with Sen. Franklin Drilon and the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 along with party mate Sen. Pia Cayetano. In early 2013 Santiago was started a feud with Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile when Enrile was alledged to give a PhP 1 million to his allied senators as christmas bonus.
Election to the International Criminal Court
On 12 December 2011, Senator Santiago was elected to a nine-year tenure as judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC). She will assume office in March 2012.
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 died at the age of 22 on November 20, 2003.
