Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago will not apologize to the governors she accused of conniving with illegal loggers and will not bother to respond to their “unintelligent” responses.
“I am a higher form of being and I would not respond to the bureaucrats representing lower life forms. I was born to do higher things than to grandstand,” Santiago said on Wednesday in reaction to the governors’ claim that she was grandstanding when she named them.
The senator said it was not her problem if the governors she implicated in her privileged speech on Monday interpreted it “unintelligently.”
“I was hoping there was some degree of intelligence on their part. I was just amused at their reactions,” Santiago said.
She denied that she simply wanted publicity. “What possible benefit could I have obtained by delivering that speech? Publicity? I am one of the most overpublicized people in the Philippines today. I won as president in 1992,” Santiago said.
She said she does not owe the governors an explanation.
“The speech speaks for itself. If they were reacting to news accounts, I can understand why they are using abusive language against me because presumably they did not understand the context or substance of the speech,” Santiago said.
She will send a copy of her speech to the Department of the Interior and Local Government and will ask Secretary Angelo Reyes to write to every governor she named to cite what they have done to curb illegal logging.
“I said in my speech that every governor is tasked primarily to protect the environment and prosecute illegal loggers in their provinces. The speech speaks for itself,” Santiago said.
Rep. Abdullah Dimaporo of Lanao del Norte described Santiago as suffering from the memory lapses associated with old age.
Santiago had named Dimaporo’s wife, Imelda, as one of the protectors of illegal loggers in Lanao del Norte.
In an impromptu speech Tuesday at the House of Representatives, Dimaporo recalled the time Miriam campaigned in Tubod town as a senatorial candidate in 2004.
She mentioned the wrong place and didn’t even know the mayors, congressmen, governors and government officials, Dimaporo said.
He quoted Santiago as saying, “Thank you, good people of Santa Maria, Misamis Oriental, for allowing me to campaign in your place.”
Dimaporo said the incident shows how Santiago’s memory has failed her. Her privileged speech, he said, also showed that she did not make an extra effort to research who the true illegal loggers are instead of depending on what her staff or the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Michael Defensor feed her.
“I have to defend my wife because we have a clear conscience. She has never been an illegal logger or a coddler. In fact she and I are fighting against illegal loggers in our province,” he added.
Dimaporo admitted it is hard to stop illegal logging in his province because the illegal loggers lure the low-salaried government employees to cut down trees and pay them the equivalent of a month’s salary in a night.
By Patricia Esteves