Miriam Defensor-Santiago laid to rest

By: Vince F. Nonato - 8 years ago

The burial mass of former Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago at Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Cubao, Quezon City. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA/ Philippine Daily Inquirer

The Philippines on Sunday bade farewell to Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, described as the princess of the people who fought with her lips.

The farewell comes with a plea for the senator, who enjoyed a reputation as a feisty fighter, to keep watching over a country that still needs a lot of correcting and reforming.

“Miriam, sleep in peace but pray for us. Our country, as you very well know, needs much more correcting and reforming,” retired Bishop Teodoro Bacani Jr. said in his homily at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Cubao on Sunday afternoon.

“What she’s not been able to finish in life, please help us when you stand at the side of Lord Jesus in Heaven.”

Bacani also comforted her widower Narciso “Jun” Santiago, Jr., in response to his lament on Friday that the senator should have been shown this outpouring of love and praise when she was still alive.

Bacani noted that Miriam’s name means “princess.”

“Prinsesa siya ng puso ng mga Pilipino. Gusto ko lang iyan tiyakin sa iyo, Jun (She’s a princess in the hearts of the Filipinos. I just want to assure you that, Jun),” he said.

The bishop recalled one of the speeches made by Santiago when she was the agrarian reform secretary under the administration of President Corazon Aquino. In that speech, she outlined her credo that “because God is good, the good will always win in the end.”

“I think it was because of that creed that she fought, and she was a fighter. She wanted to fight for the good and she fought with her lips, yes,” Bacani said.

But he stressed that Santiago was refined and never crass even when she famously used her sharp tongue to take political figures to task for perceived acts of incompetence or stupidity.

“You know, when she fought with her opponents, even when she spoke vitriol against her opponents, she did not drive you to the gutters. She sent you instead to the dictionary or Google,” he said.

Bacani highlighted Santiago’s adherence to rule of law and said that even when she prosecuted fiercely, “she always wanted the process to be fair.”

“No one can deny that in this imperfect world, Miriam stands out really as a princess. A princess stands out not proudly but with dignity,” Bacani said.

The last day of Santiago’s funeral was quite simple, with no speeches delivered aside from the thanks given by sister Nenalyn Defensor to her doctors and nurses and her “Red Army” of volunteers.

Relatives and prominent personalities–including Santiago’s most recent running mate Bongbong Marcos, his mother and her wedding godmother Imelda, former senator Francisco Tatad, and actress Heart Evangelista–were mostly clad in mourning colors of white and black.

The burial Mass, as well, was colored by a wave of supporters who were clad in the same red T-shirts used during her third and last presidential campaign earlier this year.

A modest crowd of about one thousand followers either swarmed the normally quiet Lantana Street outside the Cubao cathedral, or waited by the side of Aurora Boulevard and Barangka Drive as her remains were brought to her final resting place at Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City.

The hearse that carried Santiago’s casket was adorned by wreaths of white flowers, including one in President Duterte’s name.

Around 500 attended the hour-long burial rites marked with a 21-gun salute and a shower of confetti from a Philippine Air Force helicopter. Seventy-one white balloons and about a dozen doves were set free during the ceremony, where media were cordoned off.

Her husband’s nephew Ian Austria also gave a parting speech narrating her multiple accomplishments in life: as the first Filipina judge at the International Criminal Court, as a Ramon Magsaysay Award laureate, as the first female editor-in-chief of the student publication Philippine Collegian, as a well-experienced official of all three branches of government, and as “one of the most intellectually brilliant persons our country has ever seen.”

At 4:20 p.m., she was laid to rest in an above-ground tomb beside her son, Alexander, who committed suicide in 2003.

Entombed with her casket were flowers dropped by her loved ones and supporters, and notes containing messages left by her wakegoers.

One of them was from her grandson Charles Rotoni Santiago, who drew the senator, etched the campaign slogan “I Am For Miriam,” and scribbled the hashtag #ThankYouMiriam.

“You know how much I love u, Granma! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” read the note punctuated with a heart. JE/rga