Miriam Defensor Santiago

Miriam Defensor Santiago
Judge-Elect of the International Criminal Court
Incumbent
Assumed office March 2012
Nominated by	Philippines
Senator of the Philippines
Incumbent
Assumed office June 30, 2010
In office June 30, 2004 – June 30, 2010
In office June 30, 1995 – June 30, 2001
Secretary of Agrarian Reform of the Philippines
In office July 20, 1989 – January 4, 1990
President	Corazon Aquino
Preceded by	Philip Ella Juico
Succeeded by	Florencio Abad
Commissioner of Immigration and Deportation
In office 1988–1989
Quezon City Regional Trial Court Judge
In office 1983–1987
Personal details
Born	June 15, 1945 (1945-06-15) Iloilo City, Iloilo, Philippines
Nationality	Filipino
Political party	People's Reform Party (1992-present)
Other political affiliations	Lakas Kampi CMD (2004-2009) Nacionalista Party (2010)
Spouse(s)	Narciso Y. Santiago, Jr.
Residence	Iloilo City, Iloilo Quezon City, Metro Manila
Occupation	Lawyer, Politician
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	http://www.miriam.com.ph/

Miriam Defensor Santiago (born Miriam Palma Defensor on June 15, 1945) is a judge-elect of the International Criminal Court and a Senator of the Philippines. She is a lawyer, former trial judge and professor of constitutional and international law. She served as the Commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation in 1988 and the Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform from 1989 to 1991. She is the founder and current leader of the People's Reform Party, and a Laureate of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service.

Defensor Santiago ran for President of the Philippines in 1992, and led the canvass of votes for the first five days, but was ultimately defeated by a margin of less than a million votes out of 36 million 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 on a technicality during 1995 when she ran and won for senator.

Early life and education

Miriam Palma Defensor was born in 1945 in Iloilo City, in southern Philippines. Her father Benjamin A. Defensor was a district trial judge, and her mother Dimpna Palma Defensor, a math wizard, was a college dean. She is the eldest of seven children, most of whom she helped to send through college.

She graduated valedictorian of the La Paz Elementary School, and valedictorian of the Iloilo Provincial National High School, also earning a medal for all-around excellence. In high school, she proved to be a child prodigy. As a freshman, she won as champion of a Spelling Bee which included seniors. Also still a freshman, she topped written examinations and was appointed by a faculty panel as editor-in-chief of the high school paper, a post which she held for four years. She was high school swimming champion for the entire province during competitions sponsored by the Red Cross. She topped the National College Entrance Examinations for the Western Visayas region.

In 1965, Santiago graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science 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 honor societies.

After a three-month bout with illness, Santiago attended a branch of the University of the Philippines. There, she continued to participate in numerous oratorical, public speaking, and debate contests. She became the first female editor of the student newspaper, The Philippine Collegian and was twice made ROTC Muse. Her successful classmates included former Senate President Franklin Drilon, San Juan Representative Ronaldo Zamora, and Eli Pamatong. Unlike Drilon and Zamora, who both opted to enter big law firms, Santiago instead taught Political Science to undergraduates at the Trinity College of Quezon City. She took and passed the 1969 Bar Exams.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude, and Bachelor of Laws cum laude from the University of the Philippines College of Law. Santiago pursued higher learning, earning an LL.M. and LL.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. She attended postdoctoral short courses at various universities internationally. In 1996, she attended the Summer Program for Lawyers at Harvard Law School. In 1997, she attended the Summer Program in Law at Oxford University. She wrote and published her own law and political science textbooks, in 2002.

Awards

In 1986, Santiago was recognized as one of the Ten Outstanding Professionals of the Philippine Junior Chamber of Commerce. In 1988, she won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, which is known as Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. In 1996, the Australian Women's Magazine ranked Santiago 69th among The 100 Most Powerful Women in the World, sharing the honor with former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos who ranked 58th.

Private career

Santiago was a lecturer in political science in Trinity College of Quezon City from 1971 to 1974 and concurrently Special 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 officer of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1979 to 1980. She was also one of the legal consultants at the Washington, D.C. office. She was finally rewarded with an appointment as a Regional Trial Court Judge from 1983 to 1987,and became a most decorated trial judge. She also taught Law at the University of the Philippines from 1976 to 1988. From 1992 to 1995 and from 2001 to 2004, she has lectured at the University of Santo Tomas, Colegio de San Juan de Letran, and the University of Perpetual Help System DALTA. In 2011, it was announced that she won a seat in the International Criminal Court and will 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 gave her the mission of cleansing this notoriously corrupt commission. She served in that capacity until 1989. During that time, she earned the Ramon Magsaysay Award for a graft-busting record as commissioner.

Santiago then rose to the challenge. In her tenure as Commisioner 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.

Almost every week, the media were full of Santiago's successful exploits against criminal syndicates. At this point, she earned the wrathful resentment of politicians who are 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". She also received threats because of the raids and 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 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. Aquino's endorsement of Ramos displeased the leaders of the Philippine Catholic Church and the administration party of that time, the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP).

Santiago was leading the national 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. But many believed that this election was marred by fraud because of the nationwide power outages, with the Asian-edition of Newsweek magazine placing Santiago and her rival on the cover with the question: "Was the election fair?". This elections can be considered as the tightest in Philippine history.^{[citation needed]}

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 was also named Most Outstanding Senator several times. She filed the most number of bills in the Senate during her term. Santiago again ran for president in the 1998 elections and invited Francisco Tatad to be her running mate. Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino candidate Joseph Ejercito Estrada won the election and became president. After losing the election, Santiago returned to the Senate.

Santiago ran for reelection but lost in the 2001 elections.

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 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 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 young lawyers nominated her for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But she reportedly gave way to the senior associate justice, saying that 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 instead held the committee on economic affairs.

Third Term (2010-present)

Santiago ran for reelection in the Philippine general election, 2010 under the her PRP and as a guest candidate for six different political parties. She won and finished third among other senatorial candidates with more than 15 million votes.

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 married Narciso Santiago, a former Interior and Local Government undersecretary. They have 2 adopted daughters and 2 biological sons.

Her youngest son Alexander Robert "AR" Santiago [5] died at the age of 22 on November 20, 2003.

Santiago suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and was advised by the doctors to be "very careful" so that it will not worsen.

Published works

• Santiago, Miriam D. (1991). Inventing Myself. Narsan Publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (1991). How to Fight Graft. Movement for Responsible Public Service. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (1993). How to Fight Election Fraud. Narsan Publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (1993). Cutting Edge: The Politics of Reform in the Philippines. Narsan Publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (1994). The Miriam Defensor Santiago Dictionary. Narsan publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (2002). Politics and Governance. Central Law Book Publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (2002). International Relations. Central Law Book Publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (2003). History of Philosophy. Central Professional Books, Inc.. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (2003). Political Philosophy: Theory and Current Issues in Politics. Central Professional Books, Inc.. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (2003). Philosophy of Religion: Western and Eastern Religions. Central Professional Books, Inc.. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (1997). Where Angels Fear to Tread: Politics and Religion. Narsan Publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (1997). At the Turn of the Century: National Policy Issues in the Philippines. Narsan Publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (2002). Constitutional Law Annotated. Central Law Book Publishing. 
• Santiago, Miriam D. (1999). International Law, with Philippine Cases and Materials, and ASEAN Instruments. Cental Professional Books. 

External links

• Detailed Biography from the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation
• Biography from the Senate of the Philippines
• Miriam Defensor Santiago's résumé