Miriam Defensor-Santiago Quotes
I thought you would have to be insane to go into politics.
Santiago, Miriam Defensor. Stupid is Forever. ABS-CBN Publishing, 2014.
Presidential aides John Erlichman & Robert Haldeman
This is an important quotation because it was believed by most of the Founding Fathers and the American public until relatively recently. Presidential candidates would not think of publicly campaigning. The view was that anyone who was ambitious for power and authority should not be trusted with it. The idea was first stated by Plato and has been a major view of Western politics since. Many still believe it, but no one has come up with a practical alternative in a large jurisdiction where there is no way to know about the possible candidates without their initiative. Earlier American presidential candidates, although they did not campaign as we know it, got associates to do their campaigning for them. At Presidential nominating conventions, candidates would not even attend. Abraham Lincoln for example never attended the convention at which he got nominated, but he had associates lining up delagates and he was managing their efforts behind the scenes.
He and his Prime Minister, John Majors, had become so unpopular, that they were forced to resign by their own Conservative Party and never had to be voted out of office.
In the English political system the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch are the same. In the House of Commons, the Front Benches are reserved for the Cabinet Ministers. The argument here is that when politicians become ministers, their career and party success often become more important than the welfare of the country.
Miriam Defensor Santiago GCS QSC was a Filipina academic, lawyer, judge, author, and stateswoman, who served in all three branches of the Philippine government: judicial, executive, and legislative. Defensor Santiago was named one of The 100 Most Powerful Women in the World in 1997 by The Australian. She was known for being a long-serving Senator of the Republic of the Philippines, an elected judge of the International Criminal Court, and the sole woman recipient of the Philippines' highest national honor, the Quezon Service Cross.
