Dubai: Former Senator and presidential candidate Miriam Defensor Santiago, 71, died on Thursday morning, her husband Narciso 'Jun' Santiago Jr. told Philippine media.
"She died peacefully in her sleep this morning," Santiago was quoted as saying.
The former lawmaker died at the St. Luke's Medical Center, Bonifacio Global City.
Her Twitter account, which has nearly 3 million followers, posted a message that the former senator died at 8:52 am.
Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago died peacefully today at 8:52 a.m. Details of the interment will be announced later. (1/2)— Miriam Santiago (@senmiriam) September 29, 2016
In 2012, Defensor-Santiago became the first Filipina and the first Asian from a developing country to be elected a judge of the International Criminal Court.
In 2014, she announced that she had stage 4 lung cancer.
Who is Miriam Defensor-Santiago?
Dubbed as Asia’s “Iron Lady”, Santiago was born in Iloilo City on June 15, 1945.
The former senator ran for president in the May 2016 elections but lost to Rodrigo Duterte. She also sought the presidency in 1992 (won by Fidel Ramos) and 1998 (won by Joseph Estrada).
Fighting corruption and ineptitude in public service:
(Reaction of Paul Raymund P. Cortes, Philippine Consul General to Dubai)
Miriam Defensor Santiago was a public servant who lived her words — she inspired many to join public service not because of financial wealth but because of the wealth of experiences, wisdom, and humanity one gains as a result of serving the people.
She was an excellent academic, teaching us that public servants owe it to the people and the community to be in their most excellent form.
Thus, we in the bureaucracy and in the foreign service must aim to be continually improve ourselves by reading, studying, and analyzing political and economic events and how the Philippines and the Filipino people could benefit from it.
She was Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Philippine Senate and in her capacity, oversaw and monitored the rise in the ranks of career foreign service officials such as myself and ensure that we are at our best when representing our motherland and our people.
Anything less than great is unacceptable.
She taught us that fighting the lonely battle against corruption and ineptitude (from her stint as RTC Judge, Secretary of Agrarian Reform, Immigration Commissioner, and then as a member of the esteemed legislature) does not need an army of many but simply needs the purest of souls to inspire others to wage on that lonely war.
She taught us that it matters not whether she comes out victorious in this battle during her lifetime because in the greater scheme of the universe — her life blanketed in the virtues of education, excellence, honesty, and integrity transcends this finite world.
In these times where financial gain appears to be the end of it all, the virtues that Senator / Commissioner / Secretary / and Judge Miriam Defensor Santiago embodied live past our physical limitations and is now forever etched in the conglomeration of the eternal spirits of the universe.
