On This Day - June 16, 2020 - Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr, died of heart failure and pneumonia

 

Today in Philippine history, June 16, 2020, Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr, died of heart failure and pneumonia


On Tuesday, June 16, 2020, Beer Tycoon Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr., who led San Miguel Corporation (SMC), a food and beverage empire that produced San Miguel beer, died of heart failure and pneumonia at the St. Luke's Medical Center. Cojuangco served as chairman and chief executive officer of SMC for decades. He was 85.

Danding with Mrs. Marcos
(Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr. with Former First Lady Imelda Marcos on June 19, 2011)

Cojuangco had a net worth of $1.1 billion, according to Forbes' list of the world's billionaires, with interests in cement-manufacturing, orchards, a stud farm and Australian wineries, aside from SMC. SMC, one of Southeast Asia's largest conglomerates, with a workforce of more than 28,000 people, has ventured into fuel and oil, power and infrastructure.

Aside from business, Cojuangco delved into politics and sports, and owned three teams in the Philippine Basketball Association namely: San Miguel Beermen, Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, and Magnolia Hotshots.

But Cojuangco had also been mired in controversy.

He fled from the Philippines when President Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown by an army-backed "people power" revolt in 1986. During his years in exile, he was known to have traveled to the United States and Australia, where he bred thoroughbred racehorses.

Cojuangco had been linked to the 1983 assassination of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., but the allegation has never been proven and Aquino's family later said he was not involved. The killing of Aquino while in military custody at Manila's international airport sparked street protests that culminated in a failed coup and the 1986 uprising that toppled Marcos.

Cojuangco had also been accused of involvement in the misuse of large amounts of coconut levy funds during the Marcos years that were intended to develop the country's coconut industry. He has denied any wrongdoing and has never been convicted amid allegations of illegally amassing wealth during the Marcos era.

In the 1960s, Cojuangco served as governor of Tarlac, the base of the Cojuangco clan, which has interests in sugarcane plantations. After returning to the Philippines following Marcos's downfall, he ran for president in 1992 under the Nationalist People's Coalition but lost, although the political party he founded has remained an influential political bloc.

Cojuangco backed the successful presidential bid of Joseph Estrada in 1998, the year he regained the chairmanship of San Miguel.

Cojuanco was born on June 10, 1935 in Paniqui, Tarlac. He was the eldest child of Eduardo C. Cojuangco Sr. and Josephine B. Murphy. His mother, the daughter of an Irish-Canadian U.S. Army volunteer who married a Filipina woman, was born and raised in Baguio. His father Eduardo Sr., the son of Melecio Cojuangco, was of Chinese descent.

Cojuangco was educated at Lafayette College in Pennsylvaia. Besides English and standard Tagalog, he also spoke the Filipino regional dialects of Ilocano and Kapampangan, which are the native languages of Tarlac province.

He was married to Soledad "Gretchen" Oppen-Cojuangco of Negros Occidental. They had four children: Margarita "Tina" Cojuangco Barrera, Luisa "Lisa" Cojuangco-Cruz, Carlos "Charlie" Cojuangco and Marcos "Mark" Cojuangco.

Charlie is the current Representative of Tarlac's 1st District, while Mark once served as Pangasinan Congressman.

As of 2018, he lived with his partner, 1996 Binibining Pilipinas Universe winner Aileen "Leng" Damiles. They had two daughters.

Source:


On This Day - June 15, 1945 - Miriam Defensor Santiago was born in the city of Iloilo

 

On This Day - June 15, 1945 - Miriam Defensor Santiago was born in the city of Iloilo.


On June 15, 1945, Miriam Defensor Santiago, a public servant, a judge and legal scholar, and an outstanding Philippine senator, was born in the city of Iloilo.

Miriam Defensor Santiago   
(Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago)   

Miriam learned to take charge early in life. As a precocious child and the eldest of seven, she was running the household well before she was out of grade school. Her mother was a career woman who eschewed housework, so responsibility for the daily marketing, for supervising the family's untrained village maids, and for organizing her younger brothers and sisters to do their chores devolved upon her.

She also saw to it that the Defensor brood arrived promptly and well-scrubbed for weekly catechism classes and Catholic mass. Discipline was her mother's watchword, and young Miriam came to accept her authoritarian, achievement-oriented environment as "the natural working of the universe".

The Defensor family enjoyed high status but little wealth. Her father, Benjamin Defensor, was a lawyer and trial judge; her mother, Dimpna Palma, was a locally prominent educator. They circulated socially among Iloilo's elite, but the family budget had to be managed carefully to make ends meet, and, until Miriam was nine years old, the family occupied a modest house with a nipa (palm frond) roof. Miriam's playmates were equally poor; together they fashioned homemade toys from sardine cans and bottle caps and played happily in the sand. "We enjoyed the luxury of filth", Miriam says looking back.

Miriam Defensor was enrolled in the kindergarten of Lincoln School, later called Lincoln College, the private school where her mother was dean. She quickly demonstrated her insistence on fair play. When her kindergarten teacher's niece teased her one day by repeatedly erasing her work from the blackboard, Miriam lost patience, grabbed the girl's hair, and wrestled her to the floor. "My teacher never forgave me", she says, explaining why she graduated only sixth in her kindergarten class—one of the few times in her school career when she was not first.

Miriam continued in Lincoln until her mother quarreled with the school president and resigned. At grade five, therefore, Miriam entered La Paz Public Elementary School. There she took her turn minding the canteen at recess time. Students who did so were permitted to select one food item in lieu of pay; this delighted Miriam, who had no money to buy school snacks. As her reward she always chose banana cake, "because for me," she says, "it was the height of luxury."

Defensor was a voracious reader and, unable to afford books of her own, became a frequent patron of the United States Information Service (USIS) library in downtown Iloilo. Her deepest childhood anxiety, she says, was that "the world's book supply would run out and I would, in my middle age, have nothing left to read."

She also excelled at writing and, in the fifth and sixth grades, was student editor of the elementary school newspaper. When she entered Iloilo National High in 1957, she immediately bested all others in the examination to be editor of its paper, The Ilonggo. She held this post for all four high school years. The literary pages were also filled with her work, and as a freshman she won a school-wide spelling contest.

Defensor's precocious talents made her an instant high school celebrity. This was probably a good thing, she thinks, since it permitted her to stand out without arousing the jealousy of her friends— "it habituated them to the things I would do later". The latter included graduating as valedictorian and receiving the "All-Around-Girl Award".

Her mother had long since instilled in Miriam a drive to fill every moment with worthy activity. This drive propelled her into a life of super- achievement. But alongside her brilliance in school, and her diligent management of household and siblings, MIriam Defensor began to develop a deep spiritual life. This she did quite on her own, since neither parent was devout, and her father had virtually abandoned the Roman Catholic Church in anger over the high-handed behavior of some Spanish priests.

At Lincoln MIriam had been inspired by the serene voices and ethereal personalities of the teaching nuns. For a while she yearned to be one herself, but she remembers her father telling her, you wouldn't be serving God very much that way." She abandoned the idea but in high school began a lifelong habit of going to mass daily; she had, as she says, "the gift of faith."

In 1961, at age sixteen, Defensor entered the University of the Philippines, Iloilo campus (UP Visayas). Here she began to prepare for the study of law, since her father had advised her that she would never be able to support herself with literary pursuits. Political science the usual pre-law curriculum, was "embarrassingly easy".

She speeded through the four-year curriculum in three-and-a-half years so that she could devote her final semester to her love, literature.

As a college student, Defensor studied so efficiently that she had plenty of time left for other activities. From her freshman year onward she edited the college monthly magazine. She also competed in debating and, in summers, took outside courses in journalism and stenography. Having decided that she could write better stories than the ones she was reading, she proceeded to do so and began selling them to national magazines. In everything, she was brilliantly successful. She won award after award. For example in 1963 she won first prize in the university competitions in orator poetry, short stories, and essays. All the while she maintained excellent grades, so that when she graduated in 1965 she did so magna cum laude.

Miriam at the University of the Philippines

Early in her college career Defensor had undergone a prolonged, debilitating illness. From a stubborn case of amoebic dysentery, she slid into a serious bout of depression: "I felt that my physical energy were totally exhausted and that I had nothing left to give." Having been taught by her mother always to be doing something useful, she believed herself to be utterly worthless, and lay in bed for weeks on end and wept. She attributes her recovery to her maternal grandmother who patiently and lovingly nursed her back from the depression. By the time she recovered MIRIAM had missed all but one month of the school semester and was still so weak that she had to write holding her pencil with both hands. With gritty determination she took her final examinations—and earned the highest average in the college.

After university graduation Defensor went directly to the UP College of Law in Quezon City. In fact, she acknowledges, she studied law mainly "out of a sense of filial duty". At UP she found the law courses tedious, and she became scornful of the approach of most the professors, who simply "spoon- fed" the students, pointing out necessary readings, probable issues, and correct responses.

This was a boon for Defensor however. Her superior memory made the courses relatively easy. Still, she studied industriously. While others students read their law books once or twice, she read hers five times. Even so, she recalls, "it didn't take that much intellectual energy". Once again she found lots of time for other things.

Defensor was a sparkling success at UP, thereby breaking ground for other women students. She was the first female to win the Ferdinand Marcos Gold Trophy in debate and the first female editor-in-chief of UP's Law Register. In 1968 she became the first female editor-in-chief of the hallowed and influential Philippine Collegian as well. She was chosen corps sponsor for UP's Reserve Officer Training Corps and, in both 1968 and 1969, won the prestigious Vinzons Achievement Award for leadership. She also managed to find time to write short stories for the nation's leading weeklies. The money she earned from writing supplemented her competition-won scholarships so that she was virtually self-supporting in law school. One journalist referred to her as, "Super Girl at the UP Campus".

The mid-to-late 1960s were days of great political ferment at UP. A campus leader of high profile, Defensor nevertheless shunned the radicalism popular at the time in favor of the more moderate stance of the UP Student Catholic Action. "I never could really bring myself to hate the Americans as much as my rabid friends did", she says, attributing this to her childhood gratitude for the USIS library in her hometown. "The radical leftists always criticized me for being wishy-washy, but I just stood my ground." However, Defensor did join in objecting to Philippine military participation in the war in Vietnam and, as editor of the Philippine Collegian, she exposed UP involvement with the Dow Chemical Company in Vietnam-related chemical weapons research. Based on purloined university documents given to her secretly "in the dead of night", her editorial, "Dow is Here", revealed that the company had leased research facilities at the UP College of Agriculture at Los Banos. The editorial was reprinted verbatim in a popular Manila daily. Embarrassed, UP President Carlos Romulo tried to persuade Defensor to reveal her midnight source. She refused.

As an honor student at UP College of Law, Defensor was courted by Manila's most prestigious law firm, the law office of Alexander Sycip. Sycip entertained her in his lavish home, but he warned her that in his office one often had to work all night and through the holidays. Far from being put off, Defensor was impressed. But in the end she declined his offer. As the recipient of a largely state-funded education, Defensor felt obligated to repay the public's investment, and "the best way I could do it", she says, "was to work in government".

As it happened, she had also been approached by Secretary of Justice Juan Ponce Enrile. Upon graduation in 1969, she became his special assistant. When Enrile moved to the Defense Department Defensor stayed on under the new secretary of justice, Vicente Abad Santos. Abad Santos had been dean of the College of Law at UP, although Defensor had not known him there. For the next several years she would work in daily contact with Abad Santos, and he became her professional mentor.

Miriam met Narciso

   Miriam and husband Narciso on their 40th wedding anniversary
   Miriam and husband Narciso on their 40th wedding anniversary (Photo credit: http://raiisthename.blogspot.com/ )
Miriam met the man who would become her husband, Narciso Santiago, Jr., at law school but, as she says, law school was about all they had in common. She was from an established, but not well-off, family from the Visayas; he was the son of a newly rich family from Luzon. She was a diligent honor student who always sat in the front of the class; he was an indifferent student who sat in the back.

They met one day when Defensor, arriving late to class because of a meeting with President Marcos, slipped quietly into the back of the room. There sat Narciso with his friends, gambling and rating the legs of their women classmates. "I was absolutely flabbergasted", she remarks, "because I always thought all students were like me, terrified of the professors ... in his case, he was having a grand time." Their romance was a case of the attraction of the opposites. Although she had many other beaus, Santiago was especially ardent. After finishing law school Miriam agreed to marry him.

On June 1970 their wedding took place. Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., a friend and provincemate of Narciso, was the sponsor.

"My husband had very flexed ideas about marriage", Miriam recalls. He believed that a marriage must produce a child. So I accommodated him and my mother-in-law, who gave me a cash reward for my efforts. Their first child, a son, Narciso III, was born 13 April 1971. Defensor Santiago, who had added her husband's name to hers, took two months' maternity leave and then plunged back into her work at the Justice Department.

As special assistant to the secretary, Defensor Santiago now found herself very close to the center of her country's political life. Ensconced in a little room beside the secretary's office, she was assigned to do everything his regular staff members could not do, or could not do quickly enough. She researched materials, drafted speeches and memoranda, and prepared him for television interviews. Moreover, she often drafted speeches on law and justice for President Marcos.

Abad Santos monitored her work closely and, in academic fashion, graded it, noting "good," "very good," or "excellent," as the case might be. From Abad Santos, Miriam Defensor Santiago acquired her own, now famous, management style, which she candidly calls "headbashing." Miriam herself, was spared Abad Santos's tantrums, however; in fact, he had the much appreciated habit of complimenting her in public.

Defensor Santiago was not content to meet the demands of a full-time job, marriage, and motherhood. (In one of her short stories written about this time, a young lawyer says of herself, "Adrenalin runs in my veins.") In 1971 Miriam accepted an evening teaching position at Trinity College in Quezon City and also began to write law articles and legal textbooks.

Her most sensitive assignment as special assistant to Enrile had been to prepare a confidential memorandum for President Marcos on the advisability of declaring martial law. Locked away in a room, she and three others pored over their law books. "Our conclusion", she recalls, "was that the president was better advised not to avail [himself] of this drastic measure. We felt that the many crises that had surfaced at that time did not yet suffice to mandate such a dramatic action."

Two years passed before Marcos decided that the time had come: he declared martial law on September 21, 1972. Congress was dissolved and many of the president's political opponents were arrested. Abad Santos, who, like Defensor Santiago, was not personally in favor of the declaration, managed to resolve his doubts in favor of the president and cooperated. Following the lead of her mentor, Miriam "almost automatically adopted the same attitude." Like many others at the time, she nourished the hope that the urgent problems of the day could better be solved "in one bold stroke".

Marcos adopted a new constitution and declared it legal on the basis of a voice vote in villages around the country. Defensor Santiago's book, The 1973 Constitution, was an analysis of the new constitution for students and lawyers. Bowing to the strict censorship of the times, she refrained from expressing her doubts about the legitimacy of the document in print. However, with her law students at UP—including, at one point, the president's son—she held that the constitution had not been validly ratified. The Supreme Court justices who upheld the constitution, she said, "were suffering from a state of doctrinal confusion." Despite such reservations, she carried on as special assistant to Abad Santos, who had become minister of justice in the martial law government.

By 1974 her Saturday morning writing had resulted in a scholarly study on "The Archipelago Concept in the Law of the Sea" and a textbook entitled International Relations. She was also writing regular columns for the Philippine Daily Express on the subject of feminism. At that time she believed "there was an authentic need for a women's liberation movement," since "women were generally oppressed by the social and cultural system. Now that I am older," she says fifteen years later, "I don't think it is relevant or that it is cost efficient ... you alienate more people than you win over."

In the fall of 1974, with the blessing of Abad Santos, Defensor Santiago took a leave of absence from the ministry to study at the University of Michigan in the United States. She and her husband and son moved to Ann Arbor where, as a Dewitt Fellow, she began work toward a master's degree. (Her desire to study abroad dated from her disappointment with the UP College of Law. At that time, she had wondered, "how could U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes have achieved such stature if he went to a law school like mine?")

At Michigan, Defensor Santiago enrolled under Professor William W. Bishop, a distinguished legal scholar of international law. Under his rigorous but kindly tutelage, she honed her analytical powers and, for the first time, enjoyed law as an intellectual discipline. "Michigan is where I really went to school," she says. "It was like graduating from a fishbowl into the ocean." Bishop encouraged her to work for a doctorate, which she achieved by disciplined study during the academic year 1975-76. Her thesis was published in 1977 as Political Offenders in International Law, followed over the next decade by seven other articles on major legal questions.

In Ann Arbor, Defensor Santiago and her family joined in the social life of the local Filipino community. For parties she cooked rellenong bangus, a stuffed fish dish requiring painstaking preparation. Normally, she recognized, someone in graduate school did not take the time to do that, but her perverse streak compelled her to prove she could.

The Santiagos returned to the Philippines in 1976 and Miriam joined Abad Santos at the Ministry of Justice. When he moved to the Supreme Court three years later, she stayed at the ministry but, on occasion, helped him draft decisions. But when later in 1979 she was offered the post of legal officer with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland, Abad Santos encouraged her to accept, and she did. Thus, with her son and "most competent maid", Defensor Santiago moved to Europe, while her husband—who was not permitted to work under Swiss law—remained in Manila. Her duties involved planning and attending conferences on refugee law and analyzing draft treaties affecting refugees. In 1980, however, her father developed terminal cancer and she returned to Manila to care for him; he died six months later. Nevertheless, she remained in Manila and became consultant to the UP Law Center. On October 2, 1981, her second child, Alexander, was born.

The young lawyer was then invited to become legal consultant at the Philippine Embassy in the United States, where President Marcos's brother-in-law was ambassador: "that was an invitation I couldn't refuse," she notes. When she reported for work, however, she found she had little to do but attend cocktail parties.

Quezon City Trial Court Judge

On leave in Manila a few months later, ostensibly to arrange to move her children and husband to Washington, Defensor Santiago learned of an impending nationwide reorganization of the judiciary. She seized the opportunity to fulfill a deathbed pledge to her father—"that I would do my best to serve my country as a trial judge, as he had." She sought an appointment as regional trial judge in Quezon City, the part of Metro Manila housing the legislature of the Philippines and many of the government offices.

This was considered a plum post. Appointments to trial judgeships anywhere in Metro Manila were generally awarded only to those who had served in the provinces for seven to ten years. In her case, she had not seen a courtroom in her entire adult life.

With characteristic forwardness, Defensor Santiago went directly to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Enrique Fernando, who had once offered her a judgeship on Mindoro Island, and asked to be nominated for Quezon City. She requested Quezon City, she told him, so that she could continue teaching at the UP College of Law. ("Fernando was known to be very, very partisan in favor of UP.") Her mentor (now Associate Justice) Abad Santos was also enlisted to support her candidacy. Leaving nothing to chance, she sought the help of Juan Tuvera, an old, personal friend, who was President Marcos's executive assistant. It was Tuvera who approached Marcos with the appointment letter and who stood by and watched as the president signed it.

As a regional trial judge, Defensor Santiago heard major cases in criminal and civil law and handled special proceedings. In any given week, she might hear criminal cases ranging from bad checks through drug dealing, robbery, rape, and murder, and civil suits involving adoption, probate, or large claims between competing businessmen. The Philippine judicial system follows the European system in eschewing jury trials: the judge determines guilt or innocence and metes out sentences.

Defensor Santiago assumed her new post, determined to redeem the reputation of her country's judiciary. Philippine judges were then widely perceived to be corrupt—a perception she believes to have been all too accurate. She was determined "to prove that a party could go before me and rest assured that I would decide the case on the merits, that I would never receive a bribe to decide a case."

To emphasize this position, she established strict procedures limiting access to her chambers by litigants: "You can always tell me everything you want to tell me ... in the courtroom when the other party is present," she announced. Those who tried to bribe her, she threatened with citations for contempt of court. To make the point, she sent some immediately to jail, ordering them released, relieved but shaken, shortly thereafter. She admonished her staff against accepting or forwarding to her any gifts from interested parties. In a procedure manual she wrote, now used widely by other judges, she stated: "The first rule of this courtroom is no bribes, no extortion." To a judge who sent her unsolicited advice about one of her cases, she replied through his messenger that, "if he wants to decide my case, then I should take steps to have the case transferred to him." Rebuffing influences from all sides, Miriam Defensor Santiago eventually got her message across. After six months people stopped trying to influence her decisions.

Defensor Santiago'S most famous case pitted her stubborn independence against the government forces of Ferdinand Marcos. By presidential decree, criticizing the government in a public assembly was an offense punishable by death. And, as she points out, "an illegal public assembly was defined as a gathering of two or more people."

Following the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr., in August 1983, rallies, demonstrations, and strikes against the Marcos government proliferated. The government made selective arrests. During a military rally on the occasion of a jeepney driver's strike in 1985, several speakers who criticized the government—and in particular the First Lady—were rounded up by the police and military. They were held under a Preventive Detention Action Order issued by the president himself. Those arrested included film director Lino Brocka. When he and his companions requested release on bail, Defensor Santiago faced the question: "In a martial law situation, can a mere regional trial jury overrule the president of the republic ?"

Judges in the past had prudently sustained such arrests a denied bail. Defensor Santiago now experienced indirect intimidation from military men and anonymous death threats. She knew that a decision against the president might place her in jeopardy assassination ("at that time people had a mysterious habit of getting killed in vehicular accidents") or of being detained herself. Having scrupulously examined the issues, however, the judge ordered Brocka and the others released.

In the severely repressive climate of the times, her decision was sensational. Because of it, she became a hero to those opposing the Marcos regime, and she welcomed the publicity because "it represented an opportunity for me to demonstrate that the judicial system was working, that it was intellectually honest."

Aside from restoring integrity to the judiciary, Defensor Santiago was eager to restore efficiency. Among the problems she found was interminable delay. Delays occurred, in part, because there were too many litigious Filipinos. But aside from this, there was the habit of postponement of cases. Lawyers routinely appeared in court on their appointed days, only to request postponement, usually pleading "diarrhea" on the part of themselves, clients, or witnesses. (Lawyers were paid by clients whenever they appeared, even though the case was not brought to trial.) In many courtrooms this habit was so entrenched that the vast majority of cases scheduled to be heard on any given day would be postponed.

The young judge moved decisively to break this habit, refusing to grant postponements without real cause. In so doing, she says, "I created my own monster". The faster cases were tried, the sooner her decisions had to be rendered. She had to work doggedly to prevent a backlog and was under great personal stress. Nevertheless, she had a case disposal rate of fifty per month, one of the highest in Metro Manila. What is more, her meticulously constructed decisions were rarely appealed; three are pending before the Supreme Court. During this period, she received four major awards: Outstanding Woman in Iloilo in 1984, and in 1986 the National Police Commission Distinguished Achievement Award, the Lion's Club Award to Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service, and the prestigious Jaycee TOYM (Ten Outstanding Young Men) Award, opened to women the previous year.

As the crisis attending the later years of the Marcos regime deepened, Defensor Santiago carried on her personal battle for judicial integrity in her courtroom and addressed constitutional issues in her classrooms. But she adhered strictly to the prohibition barring judges from taking part in partisan political activities. Privately, she came to feel that the downfall and disgrace of Ferdinand Marcos was inevitable, but also rather sad. In her years in the Justice Department she had come to admire him as a truly gifted Filipino, "a man with the law at his fingertips ... and a masterful politician."

Commissioner, Commission on Immigration and Deportation

By the time of the February Revolution of 1986, however, Defensor Santiago was seen as an exception in Marcos's corrupt government. She seemed to represent the spirit of integrity that many Filipinos hoped to see restored under the new president, Corazon Aquino.

Although President Aquino's husband had been a sponsor Miriam's wedding, the two women had never met. Defensor Santiago first came to the attention of Aquino as the Judge who stood up Marcos in the Lino Brocka trial. The president offered her several positions, but Defensor Santiago declined them all so that she could continue to work close to her home in Quezon City—she treasured having lunch with son Alexander—and to the UP campus where she was still teaching. Finally, faced with finding a new chief for the country's notoriously mismanaged Commission on Immigration and Deportation (CID), Aquino made a special appeal to Defensor Santiago to accept. Miriam likes to say that her first instinct was to say, "insanity does not run in my family!" But in a heart-to-heart talk with the president she relented, although not before express her preference for a Supreme Court justiceship. "I told her ... if you think this is the best way for me to help you, so be it. It's my duty to accept."

On January 4, 1988, the "fighting judge" of Quezon City took charge of the CID and showed how a "traditionally corrupt government agency can be reformed."

With breathtaking decisiveness, she threw out the fixers, transferred suspected bribe-takers from sensitive positions, and filed administrative charges against corrupt employees. She swept away corruption-breeding disorder and red tape. She declared war on crime syndicates and exposed drug pushers, pedophiles, gunrunners, and passport forgers.

During this time, Miriam Defensor Santiago received the 1988 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.

Secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform

Impressed with her performance in the CID, President Aquino appointed Santiago as Secretary of Agrarian Reform in 1989. 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.
  • 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.
  • 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'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.

Santiago ran for President

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 (PRP) 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 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 the 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. Many believed that this election was marred by fraud because of the nationwide power outages.

The 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?"

Senator of the Philippines

Santiago ran for the Senate of the Philippines in 1995 elections, again as a candidate of her own PRP. 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 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 against Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino candidate Joseph Estrada but lost by a landslide. After losing the election, Santiago returned to the Senate. In 2001 Santiago ran for reelection but lost.

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. 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".

Santiago ran for reelection in the Philippine Senate election in 2010 under the her PRP and as a guest candidate for six different political parties. She finished third among other senatorial candidates, she garnered more than 17 million votes.

In 2012, Santiago proved to be the most important personality in the Impeachemt trial of the Chief Justice Renato Corona. She, along with fellow Senators Joker Arroyo and Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., were the only senator-judges to vote to acquit the chief magistrate.

Also in 2012, Santiago sponsored two controversial bills: Sin Tax Reform Act of 2012 (with Senator Franklin Drilon) and the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 (with Senator Pia Cayetano).

Judge of the International Criminal Court

On December 12, 2011, Senator Santiago was elected to a nine-year tenure as judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague, Netherlands. Although she is currently listed as a judge by the ICC, she has yet to take her oath and assume her office there. Santiago was absent during the March 9, 2012 oath-taking of new judges due to medical reasons, citing her elevated blood pressure and bone marrow aplasia, but later went on to reveal that she had written the president of the ICC to request that she be the last of the six newly elected judges to take her post to allow her more time to fulfill her responsibilities as a Philippine senator.

Senator Miriam Santiago died on Thursday 8:52 in the morning, September 29, 2016.

References

  • James R. Rush for the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, September 1988, Manila
    ( Acosta, Omar M. "German Women Held for Selling Infants." Philippine Daily Inquirer, 25 June 1988.
    "Nine Suspected 'Bamboo Gang' Men Nabbed." Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2 July 1988.
    Barrameda, Nes. "Santiago Defends Airport Revamp." Manila Times, 5 July 1988.
    "Santiago Defies Order of Justice Secretary. " Manila Times, 13 April 1988.
    Callo, Kathleen. "Death Threats, Armed Guards Easy Parts of Miriam's Job." Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10 February 1988.
    "Child Prostitution Network Busted." Philippine Daily Inquirer, 28 February 1988.
    "CID Chief Hurls Chairs at Erring Employees." Manila Chronicle, 25 June 1988.
    "CID Names Government Officials Listed as Aliens." Business World, (Manila), 24 March 1988.
    Defensor Santiago, Miriam. The Archipelago Concept in the Law of the Sea Problems and Perspectives. Makati: Development Academy of the Philippines, 1982.
    The Archipelago Concept in the Law of the Sea." Philippine Law Journal 49 (1974).
    "The Culture of Corruption." Outline of extemporaneous speech delivered before the Manila Rotary Club, 14 January 1988. Typescript.
    "Fighting Graft and Corruption in Government." Paper presented at Awardee’s Forum, Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Manila, 1 September 1988. Typescript.
    "The Infinite Intelligence." Manila Times, 21 April 1988.
    International Relations. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1974.
    Interview by James R. Rush. Tape recordings, September 1988. Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Manila.
    The 1973 Constitution. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1973.
    Political Offenses in International Law. Quezon City: University of the Philippine Law Center, 1977.
    Staff Manual. Regional Trial Court, Branch 106, Quezon City, 1983.
    "The Supreme Court Applies 'Clear and Present Danger': But Which One?" Philippine Law Journal 60 (1985).
    "Suerdo." Philippines Free Press, 3 July 1971.
    "What About This Women's Lib Thing?" Focus Philippines, 27 January 1973
    "Defensor Santiago Vows to Lead by Example at CID." Business World (Manila), 21 July 1988.
    Estacio, Athle Wijangco. "Miriam Defensor Santiago: All Set to Dig in Her Heels at the CID. " Sunday Times Magazine (Manila), 3 January 1988.
    Flores, Jamil Maidan. "The Wages of Virtue." Philippine Panorama, 3 April 1988.
    "Immigration Men at Airport Reshuffled." Manila Times, 2 July 1988.
    Mangaser, Lito. "Miriam Loses Temper." Manila Chronicle, 7 July 1988.
    "Santiago Eyes Legalization of 300,000 Aliens." Manila Chronicle, 17 June 1988.
    Manlogon, Melanie. "The Lady Is a Tiger." Midweek. 6 April 1988.
    Paunlaqul, Milagros D. "CID Boss Cracks Down on Corrupt NAIA Personnel." Journal (Manila). 23 June 1988.
    "CID Busts International Swindling Ring." Journal (Manila), 20 February 1988.
    Pelaez-Marfori, Berry. "I Was Born to Raise Hell." Chronicle on Sunday (Manila). 8 May 1988.
    Republic of the Philippines. Commission on Immigration and Deportation. Accomplishment Report. January to August 1988.
    "SC Upholds CID on Pedophiles." Manila Bulletin, 20 July 1988.
    Severino, Horacio. "The Wrong Way to Fight Aids." Chronicle on Sunday (Manila), 10 April 1988.
    "Tough Job, Tough Lady." Asiaweek, 1 April 1988.
    Various interviews with and letters from persons acquainted with Miriam Defensor Santiago and her work. )
  • Wikipedia Commons
  • On This Day - June 14, 1945 - Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita and the Japanese troops was defeated by Filipino & American troops in Battle of Bessang Pass

     


    On June 14, 1945, combined forces of Filipino and American soldiers defeated the Japanese troops of General Tomoyuki Yamashita in the epic Battle of Bessang Pass in Northern Luzon.

    General Yamasita
    (Japanese General Yamasita in Ifugao)

    This was a three-month uphill battle between the guerrilla forces under Colonel Russell Volckman in the Cordilleras on the border of Ifugao and Mountain Province close to Cervantes town in Ilocos Sur.

    The fall of the Japanese to the hands of the United States Armed Forces in the Philippines paved the way for the entrapment of Yamashita's forces in the Cordilleras. Yamashita finally surrendered in September 1945.

    General Tomoyuki Yamashita was known as the “Tiger of Malaya”, a nickname he earned for conquering Singapore.

    Reference: Philippines News Agency

    On This Day - June 13, 1896 - Casimiro V. del Rosario, who was recognized in 1984 as National Scientist in Physics, Astronomy and Meteorology, was born in Bantayan, Cebu


    On June 13, 1896, Casimiro V. del Rosario, who was recognized in 1984 as National Scientist in Physics, Astronomy and Meteorology, was born in Bantayan, Cebu.

    Casimiro del Rosario   
    (Dr. Casimiro del Rosario)   

    Dr. Del Rosario is known for his researches on ultraviolet light of different wavelengths, effect of radioactive radiation on euglena (a genus of unicellular organisms), high voltage electrical discharges in a vacuum, and many other accomplishments.

    He finished BS in Civil Engineering with honors at the University of the Philippines in 1918; MS in Physics at Yale University in the United States in 1924; and PhD in Physics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1932.

    Notably, Del Rosario was the co-founder of the Bartol Research Foundation (Franklin Institute) in Philadelphia, an institution which did pioneering researches in physics.

    Del Rosario also headed the Philippine Weather Bureau (now Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Adminstration (PAGASA)) for 11 years. He was vice chair for the National Science Development Board in 1958.

    He was given the Presidential Award in 1965 for his outstanding works in physics, meteorology and astronomy.

    He died on September 15, 1982 at the age of 86.

    Reference: Philippines News Agency

    On This Day - June 12,1898 - General Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the Philippine Republic as an independent country, demanding a “dignified place in the concert of free nations.”

     

     

    On This Day - June 12,1898 - General Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the Philippine Republic as an independent country, demanding a “dignified place in the concert of free nations.”

    The Philippines declared independence after more than 300 years under Spanish rule.


    Every June 12th, Filipinos celebrate their freedom by flying their national flag high in the sky.

    While there were many who fought for Filipino independence, there are a few people who are honored and remembered as heros for their contributions in securing the country’s independence. José Rizal was a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement and inspired a wave of nationalism through his writings. Andrés Bonifacio, “The Father of the Philippine Revolution”, formed a secret society called the Katipunan and led a number of successful campaigns against the Spanish. General Emilio Aguinaldo was another notable figure who fought alongside the United States during the Spanish-American War. It was he who, on June 12, proclaimed the Philippine Republic as an independent country, demanding a “dignified place in the concert of free nations.”

    Alongside celebrating the heroes mentioned above, Filipinos also attend parades, speeches and a 21-gun salute in the capital city of Manila. The national anthem is sung far and wide throughout the archipelago, and people usually enjoy the day off at parks and malls. It wouldn’t be a holiday without some famous foods like kare-kare (oxtail and vegetable stew topped with thick peanut sauce) and halo-halo (shaved ice sundae).

    Happy Araw ng Kasarinlán, or Independence Day, to the Philippines!

    On This Day - June 11, 1978 - by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 1530, the Pag-IBIG Fund was established

       

     

    On June 11, 1978, by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 1530, the Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF), more popularly known as the Pag-IBIG Fund was established to answer to the need for a national savings program and an affordable shelter financing for the Filipino worker. Pag-IBIG is an acronym which stands for Pagtutulungan sa Kinabukasan: Ikaw, Bangko, Industria at Gobyerno.

    Under the said law, there were two agencies that administered the Fund. The Social Security System (SSS) which handled the funds of private employees and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) handled the savings of government workers. Less than a year after on March 1, 1979, Executive Order No. 527 was signed directing the transfer of the administration of the Fund to the National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation, which was one of the operating agencies of the then Ministry of Human Settlements.

    Seeing the need to further strengthen the stability and viability of the two funds, Executive Order No. 538 was issued on June 4, 1979, merging the funds for private and government personnel into what is now known as the Pag-IBIG Fund. However, it was only on December 14, 1980 when Pag-IBIG was made independent from the NHMFC with the signing of PD 1752, which amended PD 1530. With the improved law in effect, the Fund's rule-making power was vested in its own Board of Trustees. Likewise, PD 1752 made Pag-IBIG membership mandatory for all SSS and GSIS member-employees.

    The administration Fund underwent some changes after former President Corazon C. Aquino assumed leadership of the country. Pag-IBIG contributions were suspended from May to July 1986. This gave way to the Presidential Task Force on Shelter to conduct a thorough review of the Fund and its operations. The task force later affirmed that Pag-IBIG Fund was run professionally and that there were no anomalies in the Fund.

    On August 1, 1986, former President Aquino directed the resumption of Pag-IBIG membership under Executive Order No. 35. Membership was still on a mandatory basis but under more liberal terms. For one, contribution rate was reduced from three percent to one percent for employees earning over P1,500. Employer share was likewise cut from three percent to a fixed rate of two percent. The Maximum Fund Salary was raised from P3,000 to P5,000. On January 1, 1987 voluntary membership to the Pag-IBIG Fund was returned under Executive Order No. 90. While many companies chose to discontinue their Pag-IBIG membership, quite a number, including big companies like PLDT and Dole Philippines opted to retain their membership to the Fund despite the voluntary nature of registration.

    Facing challenges head on, confronted with the sudden reduction in its membership base, Pag-IBIG stood unfazed and took the challenges head on. As a first step, the Fund implemented an intensified marketing campaign that focused on membership retention and generation. It was during the years as a voluntary fund that Pag-IBIG evolved from an institution primarily for savings and housing into an agency with a wider reach that covers almost all other needs.

    Pag-IBIG introduced innovative benefit programs that heeded the calls for expansion of membership to include self-employed groups with informal income, overseas Filipino workers, and non-earning spouses. It also launched other novel programs such as the Multi-Purpose Loan for its short-term loans program, and shelter programs that address both individual and institutional housing requirements. Clearly, the voluntary nature of Pag-IBIG membership did not stop the Fund from growing in depth and breadth. During the period, the Pag-IBIG Fund has claimed its rightful place in the country's economic and financial system, finally gaining the acceptance of its members, not by force, but by its continuing efforts to impress upon the members that the Fund exists solely for their benefit as well as their beneficiaries.

    On June 17, 1994, after eight years as a voluntary fund, the nature of Pag-IBIG membership reverted to mandatory when President Fidel V. Ramos signed Republic Act 7742. The new law became effective on January 1, 1995.

    Today, more than a decade after the universal Pag-IBIG coverage law was implemented, the Pag-IBIG Fund continues to be a strong partner in realizing Filipino workers' dreams. Over the years, it initiated more programs and projects, particularly those that address the needs of members belonging to the bottom economic level. The Fund has established special housing partnerships with teachers and uniformed men, among others. The Rent-to-Own Program was introduced, providing members another affordable way of homeownership. The Fund's efforts towards housing the Filipino did not go unnoticed. During the World Habitat Day celebration in October 2006, Pag-IBIG was given the prestigious Scroll of Honour Awards by the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) for "making the dream of affordable housing a reality for hundreds of thousands of households." Pag-IBIG is the first Philippine government agency to be awarded such recognition. The Fund likewise strengthened its partnership with accredited developers by way of its various institutional lending programs, among which is the much-sought after program for the development of medium and high-rise condominium buildings. The program provides a ready inventory of condominium units for sale at affordable prices, and allows members to experience condominium style living in areas close to their places of work.

    In recent years, the Fund has embarked on its successful bid in the financial market, moving a step closer to its vision of becoming a premier and globally competitive provident financial institution. In 2001, the Fund floated P2 billion-worth of Pag-IBIG Housing Bonds to generate additional funds for its shelter financing programs, which was warmly received by both institutional and individual investors. The bonds matured in late 2006.

    HDMF Law of 2009 Recognizing HDMF's contributions through the years and the need to further strengthen its capability as the biggest source of housing finance in the country to date, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law Republic Act No. 9679 or the Home Development Mutual Fund Law of 2009. The law was signed on July 21, 2009. Under the new HDMF law, membership to the Pag-IBIG Fund is made mandatory for all SSS and GSIS covered employees; uniformed members of the AFP, BFP, BJMP and PNP; as well as Filipinos employed by foreign-based employers.

    Now more than ever, Filipino workers will enjoy the benefits that are available only to Pag-IBIG members. Likewise, the law grants the HDMF exemption from tax payments like other government provident institutions. With its tax-exempt status reinstated, Pag-IBIG will have more funds to finance housing and short-term loans as well as investments in government securities. Income from these endeavors is distributed exclusively to Pag-IBIG members in the form of dividends. The HDMF Law of 2009 also gives the Board of Trustees the authority to set the contribution rates, thereby paving the way for members to save more for their future. Similarly, this will bolster the Fund's resources for home financing.

    To this day, the Pag-IBIG Fund continues to harness these four sectors of the society to work together towards providing Fund members with adequate housing through an effective savings scheme.

    References

    1. Philippine News Agency archives
    2. About page, Home Development Mutual Fund (http://www.pagibigfund.gov.ph/)
      
    Home Development Mutual Fund (PAG-IBIG fund).   

    On-This-Day - June 10,1928 - Birth of Mercedes B. Concepcion is a Filipino social scientist who was named a National Scientist of the Philippines in 2010

     

    On-This-Day - June 10,1928 - Birth of Mercedes B. Concepcion is a Filipino social scientist who was named a National Scientist of the Philippines in 2010. Concepcion was also dubbed the "Mother of Asian Demography" because of her contributions in population studies and policy within the region.

     

    Mercedes B. Concepcion (born June 10, 1928) is a Filipino social scientist who was named a National Scientist of the Philippines in 2010. Concepcion was also dubbed the "Mother of Asian Demography" because of her contributions in population studies and policy within the region. In 2002, she was named the "First Filipino Demographer" by the Philippine American Foundation. A few years later, she won the 2005 United Nations Population Award for her outstanding work in population studies on social and economic development, urbanization, and public health and welfare. Concepcion is currently the Vice President of the Executive Council of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and is a Trustee for both the Philippine Center for Population and Development (PCPD) and Foundation for Adolescent Development, among several other roles.

    Education

    Concepcion earned her bachelor's degree in Chemistry at the University of the Philippines in 1951. From 1953 to 1954, she studied Biostatistics at the University of Sydney School of Hygiene and Public Health under the Colombo Plan Fellowship.[1] Years later, she received another fellowship from the Population Council of New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.[2]

    Career and research

    Shortly following her studies at the University of Sydney, Concepcion returned to the Philippines in 1955 to become first Filipino staff member of the United Nations Statistical Training Centre at the University of the Philippines. After finishing up her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, she returned to the Philippines again to serve multiple leadership roles. She was member and chairperson of the Preparatory Committees for the Asian Population Conferences of 1963, 1972, 1984, and 1994. Concepcion also worked with the Vatican as one of the two Asian members of the Birth Control Commission in 1964.[3] This commission led to the formation of the famous encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. She also became the first Director of the newly established UP Population Institute (UPPI) in 1964.[4] In 1967, she was the first and sole Philippine Representative to the United Nations (UN) Population Commission.[2] In addition, Concepcion was the first Woman to chair this UN Population Commission from 1969 to 1977, and the first Asian woman to be elected President of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population in 1981-1985.[5][6]

    In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she headed the Organization of Demographic Associates (ODA) composed of population institutes in Asia.[2] Here, she implemented research studies on migration, urbanization, the elderly, and population and development issues. She also chaired the Steering Committee on the Social and Psychological Determinants of Fertility Regulation of the World Health Organization. This Committee reviewed research and action program proposals for funding.[2]

    In 1986, Concepcion chaired the Committee to Review the Philippine Statistical System. Approximately twenty years later, she was again appointed to the Committee to Review the Philippine Statistical System which recommended legislation for setting up the Philippine Statistics Authority which was passed into law on 31 October 2013.[7] Her reviews led to the creation of the National Statistical Coordination Board as well as the reorganization of agencies such as the National Statistics Office, Statistical Research and Training Center, Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, and Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics.[8]

    Concepcion was also involved with different social science organizations. She was one of the founding members of the Philippine Social Science Council and served as its first chairperson. She remains an active member of the Philippine Sociological Society, Philippine Statistical Association, and Philippine Population Association.[8]

    Adding to the list of roles, Concepcion has also served as a consultant for several international organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund, the UN Development Fund, the UN Statistical Office, the UN Training and Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.[2]

    Awards and recognition

    In 2002, Concepcion was named the "First Filipino Demographer" by the Philippine American Foundation.[2]

    In 2005, she won the United Nations Population Award for work in population studies on social and economic development, urbanization, and public health and welfare.[9]

    In 2010, she was bestowed the honor of "National Scientist of the Philippines " according Proclamation No. 1980 signed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. [10]