SENATOR Miriam Defensor Santiago said Friday she could serve as president of the Philippines and a member of the International Advisory Council, with the consent of the Rome-based International Development Law Organization, if she won the presidential race in May.
Santiago, who is running under the People’s Reform Party, has been invited to join Microsoft founder Bill Gates and other luminaries in an elite council of advisers for the IDLO.
“I am honored yet humbled to receive the invitation from IDLO,” Santiago said.
“It challenges me to place my lifetime career as a lawyer and legislator in a larger frame of service for the pursuit of justice and international development.”
Santiago became the first Filipino and the first Asian from a developing country to be elected judge of the International Criminal Court, the independent tribunal that prosecutes individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity, before she was invited to the IDLO Council.
She waived her post in 2013 due to chronic fatigue syndrome, which was later diagnosed as stage four lung cancer.
But in October Santiago announced she had defeated her cancer and would be running for president in the 2016 polls.
Santiago was presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City when she first catapulted into popularity, receiving many awards for her no-postponement policy and for unburdening the court of backlogs.
She was then appointed commissioner of Immigration and Deportation for which she won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service.
She also became Secretary of Agrarian Reform, and in 1992 she ran for president and never conceded defeat.
At the Senate, Santiago is known as the resident constitutional law and international law expert. She has Doctor of Juridical Science and Master of Laws degrees from the University of Michigan and a law degree, cum laude, from the University of the Philippines.
As part of the IDLO International Advisory Council, Santiago will “provide critical, forward-looking guidance on the issues IDLO tackles in order to make a culture of justice real for all the people of the world,” IDLO director-general Irene Khan said in a letter to the senator.
The IDLO is an intergovernmental organization devoted to promoting the rule of law. Khan said its advisory council was composed of “individuals of international reputation for extraordinary leadership in addressing rule of law, justice, and development issues.”