Miriam Defensor-Santiago, a public servant, judge, legal scholar, and excellent Philippine senator, was born in Iloilo on June 15, 1945. Miriam was born with the ability to lead. She was the eldest of seven children and was directing the home before she finished elementary school. Her mother was a career lady who shrewd housekeeping, so she was in charge of the daily marketing, as well as directing the family's unskilled rural maids and organizing her younger brothers and sisters to do their responsibilities.
Defensor studied so effectively as a college student that she had plenty of time for other things. She was the editor of the campus monthly magazine from her freshman year onward. She also participated in debates and studied journalism and stenography classes over the summers. She thought that she could create better stories than the ones she was reading and began selling them to big publications after deciding that she could.
She was the recipient of several awards. She received first place in university competitions in orator poems, short tales, and essays in 1963, for example. She kept her grades up throughout, and when she graduated in 1965, she was awarded as magna cum laude. In the United States, she received her Doctor of Juridical Science degree.
Because of her legal genius and daring example in combating corruption, the former senator is a worldwide recognized figure. Her honesty shines like a beacon in the darkness in a country where many public officials are accused or suspected of looting. In numerous ways, she has given respect to the Philippines.
She is the first Filipino and Asian from a developing country to be chosen to the International Criminal Court by the United Nations. The International Criminal Court considers proceedings involving heads of state. As a result, she helped to place the Philippines on the world map in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, she had to decline the opportunity to serve as an ICC judge due to a serious illness. She had been suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome for two years. She was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in June 2014. (the last stage). But she battled back with her trademark wit and tenacity, and her cancer has now retreated, even cancer cells are terrified of her! She was named a recipient of the Magsaysay Award for Government Service, which is recognized as Asia's Nobel Prize.
She was designated one of "The 100 Most Powerful Women in the World" by The Australian magazine for her "strong and moral leadership in cleaning up a graft-ridden government department." She has received accolades for exceptional performance in all three branches of government, making her the most decorated public official in the country today. She has earned accolades such as The Outstanding Young Men, or TOYM; The Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service, or TOWNS; and Most Outstanding Alumna in Law from the University of Pennsylvania, to name a few.
Sen. Santiago has submitted the most legislation and authored some of the most important laws in the Philippine Senate, where she is serving her third term. Anti-dynasty law; an act establishing an age-appropriate curriculum to combat child abduction, exploitation, and sexual abuse; anti-epal bill; freedom of information measure; and magna carta for Philippine internet freedom are some of her most significant pending bills. In legislative investigations, she has been brave in exposing and naming prominent criminal offenders, notably jueteng lords and illegal logging lords.
She was the one who initiated the national plunder probe (which is now a historic scandal). She reported in December 2012 that the Senate president had given cash presents using Senate funds, except for Senator Santiago and two others, every senator received a P2 million Christmas present from public monies. That controversy led to the infamous pork barrel affair, for which the Senate president is currently suspended and in jail after the Ombudsman charged him with plunder, unlike her colleagues in Congress, her "pork barrel," commonly known as PDAF, was never tainted by a bribe, according to COA records.
The former senator will be recognized as a true hero of her people throughout Philippine history. The platinum woman, the tiger lady, the dragon lady, the iron lady of Asia, the queen of popularity surveys, and the unquestioned campus hero have all been given to her. But she is most known to her millions of followers for her particular brand of charismatic leadership, dubbed "Miriam Magic" by the media. She is a true form of women strength and power, a leader with untainted dignity.
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