Santiago believes President Aquino will not seek second term

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago (Facebook photo)

MANILA – Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago believes President Benigno S. Aquino III will not seek another term, saying the Chief Executive, like his mother — the late former President Corazon C. Aquino — is not a power-hungry person.

”The Aquino mother and son are not power-hungry people. That’s my personal observation,” Santiago said in a press briefing at the Senate after walking out of a Commission on Appointments (CA) hearing Wednesday.

Santiago said President Aquino was just adopting hints about a second term “because he does not want the politicians to treat him as lame duck President and completely ignore him.”

”I think President Aquino is literally counting that days, weeks, months and years. He is just like his mother. I was closed to his mother,” Santiago said.

President Aquino was elected in May 2010, less than a year after his mother died of cardiorespiratory arrest. The President’s mother was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in March 2008.

Santiago was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer last June and is now on the road to full recovery, thanks to a wonder pill that led 80 percent of her cancer tumor to disappear only six months after she started the medication.

If she will make a full recovery by December this year, Santiago said she will consider running again for president in the 2016 elections.

Santiago, who ran but lost in the 1991 presidential race, said she will also consider joining an international non-government organization or write a book in Washington, D.C. after her term as senator expires in 2016.

”If I don’t make a full recovery and go on to a dark place, I will come back anyway and sabotage the plans of corrupt politicians,” she said.

Santiago returned to the Senate Wednesday, two months after she announced she was diagnosed with cancer, but walked out of a hearing after arguing with Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Farinas on the committee proceedings.

The CA committee on foreign affairs was supposed to tackle the confirmation of 48 officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs, including six ambassadors.