Miriam invited to join Bill Gates, other luminaries in elite council of advisers  

A Rome-based intergovernmental organization promoting the rule of law has invited Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago to join Microsoft founder Bill Gates and other luminaries in its elite council of advisers.

International Development Law Organization Director-General Irene Khan, in a letter to the senator, said Santiago will “provide critical, forward-looking guidance on the issues IDLO tackles in order to make a culture of justice real for all the people of the world.”

Khan said the IDLO advisory council is composed of “individuals of international reputation for extraordinary leadership in addressing rule of law, justice, and development issues.”

Besides Gates, council members include former Ireland President Mary Robinson; former Senegal President Abdou Diouf; Abdel-Latif Al-Hamad, chairman of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development; Albie Sachs, former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; and former US Ambassador Thomas Pickering.

Santiago said she is honored yet humbled to receive the invitation from IDLO.

"It challenges me to place my lifetime career as a lawyer and legislator in a larger frame of service for the pursuit of justice and international development,” the senator said in a press statement issued Friday.

Before being invited to the IDLO Council, Santiago became the first Filipino and the first Asian from a developing country to be elected judge of the International Criminal Court, the independent tribunal that prosecutes individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

She waived her post in 2013 due to chronic fatigue syndrome, which was later diagnosed as lung cancer, stage four.

In October 2015, Santiago announced that her cancer has been arrested, and that she is running for president in the 2016 polls.

“If elected in May, and with the consent of IDLO, I expect to serve both as president of the Philippines and member of the International Advisory Council,” the senator said.

Santiago was presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City when she first catapulted into popularity, receiving numerous awards for her no-postponement policy and for unburdening the court of backlogs.

She was then appointed Commissioner of Immigration and Deportation, for which she won the the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service.

Santiago also became Secretary of Agrarian Reform. In 1992, she ran for president but was lost to President Fidel Ramos.

At the Senate, Santiago is known as the resident constitutional law and international law expert. She has Doctor of Juridical Science and Master of Laws degrees from the University of Michigan, and a law degree, cum laude, from the University of the Philippines. — Amita Legaspi/RSJ/ALG, GMA News