Miriam gets award from UP Visayas

MIRIAM Defensor-Santiago

SEN. MIRIAM Defensor-Santiago, who announced in July her plan to join the presidential race with her cancer in check, received on Sunday the lifetime achievement award from the University of the Philippines (UP) Alumni Association-Iloilo chapter.

Santiago, who is on medical leave from the Senate due to Stage 4 lung cancer, was given the award at the alumni and faculty homecoming in Iloilo City. She was represented by her sister, former Higher Education Commissioner Nenalyn Defensor.

“I am deeply grateful for the award. I would have gone if it were physically possible but I am inhibited by my lung cancer,” the senator said in a message. She graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, magna cum laude, from UP Visayas in 1965.

UP alumni cited Santiago “for truly living the UP culture of excellence” and “for putting the Ilonggos on the global map through the many awards, recognition and citations she has received.”

Santiago brought “honor to UP and Ilonggos as a graft-buster of the country and a protector of the welfare of the Filipinos by adhering, at all costs, to truth, honesty, independent mindedness and justice,” the citation read further.

She became the first female editor in chief of the Philippine Collegian, the UP student publication.

She graduated from the UP College of Law, cum laude, in 1969.

She received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service for “bold and moral leadership in cleaning up a graft-ridden government agency.”