IF SHE DOESN’T MAKE ICJ:
Sen Santiago running for president to ‘terrorize’ foes
By Maila Ager
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 13:50:00 06/27/2008
NEW YORK CITY -- If she is not elected to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said she might run for president “just to put terror in the heart of my enemies.”
But if she does get a seat in ICJ, Santiago said she would resign as senator.
“I would have to resign [as senator] because the term [of an ICJ judge] will begin by about the first week of January and I would miss about one year of my term. So if that happens, I hope that the electorate will forgive me,” Santiago told reporters here at a reception for her candidacy on Thursday.
“If I don’t make it, then I’ll probably run for president of the Philippines. That is just to put terror in the heart of my enemies,” she said.
“But I do know that my enemies will heave a collective sigh relief [if she wins an ICJ seat]. That’s my only regret,” she said.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is here, among other reasons, to lobby for the senator’s candidacy to the ICJ.
Santiago said she was confident Arroyo’s presence would be a big boost to her candidacy in November.
“Well, her [Arroyo] enemies will be disappointed to know that President Arroyo is very prestigious in the United Nations because of her pronouncements about women’s rights and human rights in general,” she said.
“She is admired for her courage,” she added. “In our country, we don’t emphasize this, but when she goes to certain troubled countries for example, like Kuwait, to rescue those women in distress there, she earns a lot of admiration for her courage there.”
The senator claims to have secured over 100 votes, which is over the simple majority of 97 of the 192 member-states of the UN.