Former Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, 71, succumbed to cancer this morning, her husband Atty. Jun Santiago said.
“She died peacefully in her sleep this morning,” GMA News quoted her husband as saying.
The former lawmaker passed away while confined at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Bonifacio Global City, according to the GMA report.
Her official Twitter account posted a message midmorning that former Sen. Santiago died at 8:52 a.m.
Details of the interment will be announced later, it said.
The former lawmaker revealed in 2014 that she had stage 4 lung cancer.
Born in Iloilo City on June 15, 1945, the former senator ran for president in the May 2016 elections but lost to Rodrigo Duterte. She also sought the presidency in 1992 (won by Fidel Ramos) and 1998 (won by Joseph Estrada).
Santiago has been dubbed as the “Iron Lady of Asia” for her no-nonsense drive against graft and corruption when she served all the three brances of the government—judicial, executive, and legislative.
“In a nation where many public officials are charged with, or suspected, of plunder, her honesty shines like a light in the darkness,” her Senate biography read.
