MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte will confer today on late senator Miriam Defensor Santiago the Quezon Service Cross award, the highest recognition the nation can bestow on its the civil servants.
Santiago would be the sixth and the only woman to receive the prestigious award.
The Quezon Service Cross is awarded to Filipino citizens nominated only by the President and which has to be approved by Congress.
There have been at least five recipients of the Quezon Service Cross since its creation in 1946.
Among them are Emilio Aguinaldo, Carlos P. Romulo, the late president Ramon Magsaysay, martyred former senator Benigno Aquino Jr. and the late interior secretary Jesse Robredo.
The values, ideals and services demonstrated by Santiago compared favorably with the standards exemplified in public service by the late President Manuel L. Quezon.
Duterte, who won against Santiago in the presidential elections in 2016, nominated the late senator for the award last year.
Sens. Grace Poe and Sonny Angara had filed separate resolutions urging the President to confer the award to Santiago whom they said, “had dedicated her life to public service through her work in all the branches of government.”
Santiago served as a trial judge, immigration commissioner, secretary of agrarian reform, and member of the Senate.
As a presiding judge of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, Santiago implemented a no-postponement policy resulting in the quicker disposal of cases and the unclogging of court dockets.
As immigration commissioner, she instituted an express lane and other meaningful reforms that resulted in her being awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for bold and moral leadership in cleaning up a graft-ridden agency.
As a senator for three terms, Santiago consistently filed the highest number of bills and resolutions, and authored some of the most important laws of our time.
Santiago is known for her fiery speeches at the Senate and funny pickup lines.
She spent much of her life in public service until she passed away in September last year due to lung cancer.