Miriam Palma Defensor-Santiago (June 15, 1945 – September 29, 2016) was a Filipino politician and lawyer who served in all three branches of the Philippine government: judicial, executive, and legislative. Defensor Santiago was known for being a long serving senator of the Philippines and an elected judge of the International Criminal Court. She is the sole female recipient of the Philippines' highest national honor, the Quezon Service Cross.
In 1988, Defensor Santiago was named laureate of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service, with a citation for bold and moral leadership in cleaning up a graft-ridden government agency. After being appointed by President Corazon Aquino as secretary of agrarian reform from 1989 to 1990, she ran in the 1992 presidential election but was defeated in events that involved a car crash injury and power outages during voting process. Defensor Santiago would then serve three terms in the Philippine Senate. After former president Joseph Estrada was arrested on April 25, 2001, she was among the politicians who spoke against EDSA II at pro-Estrada rallies that preceded the May 1 riot near Malacañang Palace.
In 2012, Defensor Santiago was elected as a judge of the International Criminal Court. She later resigned from the post, citing chronic fatigue syndrome. On October 13, 2015, Defensor Santiago declared her third candidacy for president of the Philippines in the 2016 election after her doctors from the United States declared her cancer "stable" and "receded" but lost the election. She died from complications from her cancer on September 29, 2016, and was buried days later at Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina. In December 2018, the prestigious Quezon Service Cross was posthumously conferred upon Defensor Santiago, making her the first woman and the sixth person ever to be awarded. Defensor Santiago was known as the "Iron Lady of Asia". She is colloquially known in Philippine pop culture as simply Miriam or MDS and is cited for her dedication to public service in the Philippine government.
Early life and education
Defensor Santiago was born Miriam Palma Defensor in Iloilo City to Benjamin Defensor, a local judge, and Dimpna Palma, a college dean as the eldest of seven children on June 15, 1945. She was a class valedictorian in grade school, high school, and undergraduate school. She graduated from high school in Iloilo Provincial High School. In 1965, Defensor Santiago graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, magna cum laude from the then University of the Philippines College Iloilo. After graduation, she was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies. She proceeded to the University of the Philippines College of Law. There, she was champion in numerous oratorical contests, debates, and topped written examinations. She became the first female editor of the student newspaper, The Philippine Collegian, and was twice appointed Reserve Officers' Training Corps muse. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws, cum laude, from the University of the Philippines College of Law in Diliman. At Cambridge, she was a research fellow at the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law. When she was already a senator, she earned the Master of Religious Studies degree at the Maryhill School of Theology.
Early career
Defensor Santiago served as a special assistant at the Department of Justice before the martial law under Ferdinand Marcos. In the position, she served as one of Marcos' speechwriters.
In 1983, Defensor Santiago was appointed judge of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Quezon City. She was the youngest judge appointed to Metro Manila, exempt from the rule for newcomers to be appointed to provinces outside Metro Manila. The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said she handled a record 50 cases a month by avoiding delays and postponements. She received serious death threats but proclaimed: "I eat death threats for breakfast".
Secretary of Agrarian Reform
President Aquino promoted Defensor-Santiago to a member of her cabinet as Secretary of Agrarian Reform in 1989. She eventually returned to private citizenship. She served as the chair of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council Executive Committee in 1989.
1992 presidential campaign
Defensor Santiago's candidacy for President of the Philippines was confirmed on February 19, 1990. She ran under the People's Reform Party (PRP) with a senatorial ticket of 16 candidates during the 1992 presidential campaign; Ramon Magsaysay Jr. was her running mate. Due to a lack of funding, she called on university students to campaign house-to-house for her. She had a large fanbase during her campaigns and rallies. She eventually went to the Metropolitan Hospital College of Nursing. At the hospital, a Catholic priest administered the last rites of the dying. Two months later, she recovered and continued campaigning. When she continued campaigning, numerous presidential surveys including ones from the Social Weather Stations and the University of Santo Tomas predicted her as the winner. Following a string of power outages, the tabulation concluded, and Ramos was declared president-elect with a vote count of 5,342,521, 23.6 percent of the votes. Defensor Santiago, on the other hand, gained a smaller 4,468,173 votes, 19.7 percent of the votes. Public outrage over the presidential results prompted Newsweek to feature her and her rival on the cover with the question: "Was the Election Fair?" In another cover story, Philippines Free Press magazine asked: "Who's the Real President?". The quote, "Miriam won in the elections but lost in the counting" became popularized due to her loss. In 2000, she filed in the Senate the first version of the anti-discrimination bill which would later become the SOGIE Equality Bill. She was one of the few senators who were against the opening of the second envelope—an envelope which allegedly contained evidence against then-President Joseph Estrada—during Estrada's impeachment trial; he was her foe in the 1998 presidential elections. She said afterwards: