By Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
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VOTERS KEEN in assessing the fitness for office of the five candidates for President in the upcoming elections may want to look at the presidentiables’ political pedigree and blood relations.

Here’s a rundown of the political history and family ties in the government of the five presidentiables:

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SENATOR MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO has served as a trial court presiding judge, then Immigration commissioner, and Agrarian Reform secretary. She has been senator since 1997. Her third term in the Upper House will end this June.

In December 2011, she was the first Filipina and Asian to be elected to a nine-year tenure as judge of the International Criminal Court. But she later declined the post, citing as reason chronic fatigue, which eventually led to a diagnosis of lung cancer.

Santiago’s relatives provide her access to a network of politicians and bureaucrats. Her cousins, nephews, and a niece have served alternately as representatives of the third district of both Quezon City and Iloilo from the 12th to the 15th Congress (2001-2013). Her husband, lawyer Narciso Yap Santiago Jr., has also been appointed to various government offices.

Two of Santiago’s cousins and a sister have held key positions in the Bureau of Customs, the Commission on Audit, and the Commission on Higher Education.

In her SALN for 2014, Santiago said she has eight relatives in the government service.

The senator’s sister Nanalyn Defensor serves as her chief of staff, cousin Mary Grace Katigbak is Political Affairs Officer, and sister-in-law Chona Defensor is Director 1, at the Senate.

Her paternal first cousin Arthur Defensor Sr. is incumbent governor, and his son Arthur Jr. is the congressman of the third district of her home province of Iloilo.

Maternal cousin-in-law Estrellita Bito-onon Suansing is the congressman of the 1st District of Nueva Ecija.

Cousin-in-law Vivian Suansing is assistant director at the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

During the Arroyo administration, Santiago’s brother Benjamin P. Defensor Jr. was Air Force chief. Santiago’s husband Narciso Jr., meanwhile, was an undersecretary of the Interior and Local Government under both Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

The Santiagos had two sons Narciso III or “Archie” and Alexander Robert or “AR,” who died in a reported suicide in 2003.

On July 18, 2007, Senator Santiago herself swore into office son Archie as representative of the Alliance of Rural Concerns (ARC) party-list group, which won a seat in that year’s elections. This was even after ARC had withdrawn Archie’s nomination as its top nominee, for supposed “loss of confidence, dishonesty, unauthorized exercise of authority and gross violations of the group’s Constitution and by-laws.” ARC has focused its advocacy on the extension of the comprehensive agrarian reform program.

The Santiagos have adopted daughters, twins Megan and Molly.

(To be continued)

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