The Senate on Monday, August 14, unanimously approved on third and final reading a bill renaming Agham Road and the BIR Road in Quezon City after the late Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

The late Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago during a press conference at the Senate in 2012. She succumbed to lung cancer in September 29, 2016. (Senate PRIB Photo)

Senators present at the plenary hearing approved on final reading House Bill No. 7413, also known as "An Act renaming the Agham Road and the BIR Road, stretching from North Avenue, traversing through Quezon Avenue up to East Avenue, all located in Quezon City, as Senator Miriam P. Defensor-Santiago Avenue", taking into consideration Senate Bill Nos. 1888, 2069, 2163 and 2183.

Senate President Juan Miguel "Migz" F. Zubiri, Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros, Senators Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr., Jinggoy Estrada, and Juan Edgardo "Sonny" M. Angara offered tributes and relayed memorable personal experiences with “one of the pillars of the Philippine Senate.”

”She has a feisty appearance on TV and she was a very feisty woman, a firebrand of leadership and performance, but in the halls of Congress... she was like a mother to all of us," Zubiri said.

"This honor is a small token of what she should be honored throughout the Philippines. She should be given all the accolades and honors. She was an excellent legislator and an excellent senator," he added.

Defensor-Santiago passed away after a valiant battle with lung cancer last September 2016 at the age of 71.

Defensor-Santiago held positions in all three branches of the Philippine government – judiciary, executive, and legislative.

In the judiciary, she served as presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court at Quezon City. In the executive branch, she was an immigration commissioner and an agrarian reform secretary. In the legislative branch, she served as a senator for three terms.

Dubbed the "Iron Lady of Asia" and "Dragon Lady", she welcomed unique challenges in each of her posts in her decorated public service. She was also widely known for her unique and fiery quotations, including the infamous “I eat death threats for breakfast!” remark.

"She has truly left a legacy that, to this day, serves as our guiding light in our quest towards providing our countrymen with the kind of service she has espoused her whole life: public service punctuated by integrity and honor, standing courageously by the line of fire without fear nor bias, and always advocating for the welfare of the people above all else," Revilla, the main sponsor of HBN 7413, said.

Defensor-Santiago, an advocate of global justice, was the first Asian judge elected to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Likewise, she was the first Filipino elected as commissioner for the International Development Organization. She also served as Legal Officer at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1988, Defensor-Santiago was a laureate of the Magsaysay Award for Government Service, known as the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She was cited then “for bold and moral leadership in cleaning up a graft-ridden government agency.”

“When I was a neophyte senator, she was my first mentor,’’ recalled Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada.

"If my memory serves me right, I was the one who called up her husband, Undersecretary (Narciso) Jun Santiago, to set an appointment with me. And she was very, very accommodating when I first met her in her residence and I asked her what to do in the Senate and then she was the one who taught me how to deal with the media, how to deal with fellow senators and she was the one who taught me how to deliver my speech and in fact, she was really, really unselfish in teaching or in mentoring the neophytes in the Senate and I am very, very grateful for that. Sen. Miriam, saan ka man naroroon, tandaan po ninyo, mahal po namin kayo (Wherever you are, we love you)," Estrada said.