BY PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA – What is she up to this time?
Feisty Ilongga senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago told journalists to brace themselves for a “major announcement” she will make on July 2.
Is she resigning from the Senate?
Is she running for president in 2016?
Has she changed her mind once more and is after all flying to The Hague in the Netherlands to serve as judge in the International Criminal Court (ICC)?
Is it something about her archenemy in the Senate, Juan Ponce Enrile who faces arrest over the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam?
Santiago declined to give any hint of what she’s going to announce, as if teasing the inquisitive press.
Just this June 3, Santiago announced she had decided not to pursue her job as ICC judge.
She was supposed to serve from 2012 to 2021.
“Since I was elected in December 2011, I have secured neither alleviation nor treatment from the medical profession for my illness, known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,” said Santiago.
The senator previously said, too, that she was not qualified to run for the presidency because she was expected to be called to The Hague.
She also said she could not afford to run for president because she was “not a member of the pork barrel scam” and did not have the money to fund her campaign.
A 2016 presidential candidate should at least have P15 billion, Santiago said.
But just this April, the lady senator said she may run for president if those involved in the pork barrel scam are brought to trial.
Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. are currently detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame for the alleged scam.
Enrile is expected to follow suit.
“My illness has occurred periodically over a period of some 10 years. But it appears that in its present manifestation, things have come to a head and I am rendered virtually dysfunctional,” she wrote the Civil Service Commission last year.
“I have good days and bad days, like cancer patients. Sometimes they feel better, sometimes they feel worse. Even if I have a good day, I can only work for an hour or two (only),” she shared.
Santiago ran for president in 1992 but lost to then Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos. She claimed to have been cheated.
She took another shot at the presidency six years later. She failed once more./PN
