Miriam inhibits herself from Congress canvassing

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago has no plans of joining her fellow lawmakers when Congress convenes next week to canvass the votes for president and vice president. On Friday, Santiago sent a letter to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile asking if she could inhibit herself from the panel of the joint congressional committee that will carry out the canvassing. She requested to be excluded because she was a guest candidate of four political parties — the Nacionalista Party, Nationalist People's Coalition, Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino, and Lakas-Kampi-CMD — in her successful reelection bid. When she filed her certificate of candidacy late last year, Santiago registered herself under the People's Reform Party. "I might be suspect if I sit in the Senate panel, because I ran with, among others, his PMP national ticket," Santiago said. While the presidential candidates of the two parties of which Santiago is a guest candidate have already conceded (NP's Manuel "Manny" Villar Jr. and Lakas-Kampi's Gilberto Teodoro Jr), PMP's presidential bet Joseph Estrada still refuses to accept defeat and had even hurled poll fraud allegations. Santiago, a former Quezon City regional trial court judge, said members of the judiciary are seen to exercise "sound discretion" when they inhibit themselves from cases in which their motives and fairness might be put in question. "Under the law, a judge’s decision to voluntarily inhibit from a case is a matter of conscience, and springs primarily from the judge’s sense of fairness and justice," Santiago said. "In the same way, members of the joint congressional canvass committee should exercise prudence in order to maintain and strengthen the voters’ faith in our electoral process," she added. The Iloilo-born senator became an RTC judge for three years from 1983 to 1987. Three years after losing in the 1992 presidential elections, Santiago won a seat in the Senate. Along with eight other candidates, Santiago was proclaimed as senator last Saturday after getting 16,066,001 votes based on the count of the Commission on Elections sitting as the National Board of Canvassers. — Mark Dalan Merueñas/RSJ, GMANews.TV