Remember when we were fans of Miriam Defensor Santiago? We all had bigger hair then. It was just after the1986 Edsa Revolution. The world was going to change: we were going to wipe out poverty, ignorance, graft and corruption, cronyism, all the ills that plagued our country. Well, we didn’t, but we thought we could, and we thought we could because there were people in the government like Miriam Defensor Santiago. Not only was she whipsmart, but she had guts. She feared no one; she didn’t care what powerful characters she offended in the performance of her duties. Her integrity was unquestioned.
Sure she had that strange accent, but so what? She was a walking quotable quote machine, tossing off one-liners with great panache. We thought the accent was cute. Remember when she called some congressman “fungus face?” When she challenged someone to an IQ test? She nonchalantly told her enemies that she “ate death threats for breakfast.” In a demonstration of supreme confidence, she had herself photographed in a swimsuit. When her political opponents started questioning her sanity, we figured it was the only way they could deal with a woman who was so obviously their intellectual superior. We believed in her. There was a time when we would’ve followed her anywhere.
Things change. Yesterday somebody e-mailed me the text of a speech that Senator Santiago delivered in 1998. The speech was downloaded from the soc.culture.filipino Usenet archives, and it was entitled, “Was Dirty Money Used to Buy the Philippine Presidency?” In it the senator denounced a presidential candidate who was “notorious for his lack of discrimination in soliciting campaign contributions.”
“As a presidential candidate, I have naturally campaigned around the country,” Senator Santiago said.” Since I am not blind, I have seen a certain candidate’s cornucopia of propaganda materials pouring in an awesome avalanche in innumerable places not authorized by law. Since I am not deaf, I listened to the apologetic accounts by local politicians of the wealth of a Croesus given to them, in exchange for joining the ticket of that candidate’s party. Since I am reasonably literate, I read at least one account in a foreign newsmagazine about that candidate’s campaign contributors from the business community, and his state-of-the art campaign headquarters and vehicles. I admit that I grudgingly admired his capacity to raise such fantastic amounts of money for his campaign, and I tried not to hold it against him.
“But like most Filipino voters, I began to wonder. The candidate has no known source of livelihood except his salary as a public official. Yet he lives ostentatiously in a rich neighborhood, and has publicly admitted to providing financial support for various illegitimate families. He is a patron of casinos here and abroad. When he travels, he brings an entire retinue, most of them ethnic Chinese businessmen known in Manila. I testify from personal knowledge, because at least two times our paths crossed in foreign countries.” It seems obvious that she was describing then-presidential candidate and now ex-President Joseph Estrada.
“In 1992, this candidate directly and personally, in front of witnesses, asked me to run as his vice-president, with an offer of more money that I will ever see in my lifetime. Again in 1997, the Chinese factotum of a well-known Chinese taipan went uninvited to my house in U.P. Village, Quezon City, and repeated the offer to run as vice-president, with a guarantee of whatever amount it might take.” She went on to say that the candidate’s presidential campaign involved “mind manipulation and vote-buying, in proportions that can only be called satanic.” She said the survey firms had been bought by the candidate’s men, and that the popularity surveys and exit polls had been rigged. “In other words,” she said, “the Filipino electorate, particularly the gullible, were taught subliminally but relentlessly that it was useless to resist, because a sure winner was allegedly at hand, never mind his abject lack of qualifications for the job.”
Today she is one of Estrada’s fiercest supporters. In her campaign speeches she has declared that once she is reelected, she will move to reinstate Estrada as President. During the massive gathering of Estrada loyalists on Edsa, she repeatedly urged the crowd to march on Malaca?ang. We know that in politics, allegiances change, loyalties are reassigned, and fighting words are sucked back in. Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago is not the only person to change her mind-politicians do that every thirty seconds, assuming they have minds. But Miriam was supposed to be different. I kind of miss the old Miriam. Call me a nut, but I do.
