Ailing Miriam on sick leave until her term expires on June 30

After braving the campaign trail, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago has become weak due to the anorexia caused by one of her anticancer medications, and will continue with her medical leave until her Senate term ends.

Santiago wrote Senate President Franklin Drilon on Tuesday to inform him that she will continue to be on medical leave for cancer.

“One of the medications has produced a side effect of anorexia (inability to eat), which renders me physically and mentally weak,” Santiago said in her brief letter.

But she said she and members of her staff will nevertheless be ready to vacate their Senate offices by June 30.

Santiago is one of the graduating senators this year. The feisty lawmaker has come to the  end of her second six-year term.

She ran for president in the recently concluded elections, despite battling lung cancer, diagnosed in 2014.

But prior to the discovery that she had lung cancer, she had already been on medical leave due to chronic fatigue syndrome.

Amid questions on her fitness to head the country given her health condition, she had said she had beaten the disease, as her anticancer medications had proved effective.