Miriam Santiago files COC for president

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago on Friday afternoon filed her certificate of candidacy for president just a few hours shy of the 5 p.m. deadline.

It was only on Tuesday that Santiago declared her intention to run for president, saying she was doing so after winning her bout with lung cancer.

It will be her third presidential run after finishing second to Fidel Ramos in 1992 and placing seventh in 1998.

Santiago will be running for president with Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as her vice presidential candidate.

In the news conference after she filed her COC, Santiago was asked how she could run with Marcos when she defied the senator's father and namesake, the late former dictator, during the martial regime.

Santiago, as a regional trial court judge in the early 1980s, ordered the release of student-protesters who were detained without warrants of arrest.

The senator said she was not backtracking from the decisions she made as an RTC judge during the martial law period.

Santiago said one of the memorable decisions she made was releasing students from the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University who were arrested at the time.

"You ask me, 'Do you still affirm the decision you made in court?' Yes, I do. I was correct... Truth is still truth, justice is still justice," Santiago said.

"I do not have to reconcile me as a trial judge [with my decision to run with Marcos]... Time has changed. Your opinions and ideologies are different from those of your parents'. You always have to adjust to the times," she added.

Santiago said, "Life does not have to be a constant straight line from one end to another."

"At first I was one of the people who did not mind the imposition of Martial Law. In the first few years, there was much more order in the streets, but eventually I think that Martial Law did not proceed as intended," Santiago said.

On running for president a third time, Santiago said, "The third time's always a charm." —NB, GMA News