“He was the first to bring forth the idea for me to run for the Senate, when I was 37 years old. I owe him much. The Filipino people mourn his passing.”

This is what Senator Loren Legarda, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, had to say about the passing of former President Fidel Ramos.

Ramos, who was 94-years-old when he passed, succumbed to complications wrought by Covid-19. He died on Sunday afternoon, July 31, at the Makati Medical Center where he’d been rushed a few days prior.

READ: Farewell, FVR

Legarda, now 62-years-old, bared that it was Ramos who first pushed her to run for Senator. Now the longest serving female senator, she has tenured four terms in the Upper House: from 1998 to 2994, from 2007 to 2019, and was re-elected in the 2022 polls.

“Former President Fidel V. Ramos was an exemplary leader and did us proud as the ‘captain of our ship of state,’ during his term. We owe our tiger economy status then to FVR. I learned my ‘csw’ or complete staff work from him,” she said.

It was during Ramos’ administration that the Philippine economy enjoyed a massive boom, leading to an economic era dubbed the “Tiger Cub Economy of Asia.”

“He was a disciplined leader, he was able to unite various factions despite being a minority President upon his election,” Legarda concluded.