A remembrance

I have had many conversations with the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago; some of them serious, colloquies as she would call them, some of them very casual. We usually talked over a cup of coffee or over dinner but the one thing constant is that any conversation with her was engaging and meaningful.

- OF TREES AND FOREST FORMER SENATE PRESIDENT MANNY VILLAR

Many people were impressed by her grandiloquence, and rightfully so because when she spoke you would often find yourself looking for a dictionary. But in my intimate chats with her, I have been more amazed by her mind. Her mental acuity is as sharp as her rhetorical virtuosity.

Everyone probably remembers her as a graft-buster, and she was indeed relentless in her fight against corruption in government. But there was one quality Miriam possessed that really impressed me: she did not care about being popular, all she cared about was doing what she thought was right. In one of our talks, I remember her quoting a philosopher to drive home her point. Turned out it was Cicero: "I have always been of the opinion that unpopularity earned by doing what is right is not unpopularity at all, but glory."