Sen. Santiago failed to snag a seat at the International Courts of Justice

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20081107-170752/RP-loses-intl-court-justice-bid

Earlier today, as I was watching the morning show, news broke out that the Philippines lost in the International Court Justice bid. The country has lost its bid for a seat in the International Court of Justice to Somalia, the Philippine Mission to the United Nations said in an e-mailed statement to media.

"Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago's bid for a seat in the ICJ came to an unsuccessful end on Thursday (Friday morning in Manila) but not after the Philippine candidate came up with a good fight that forced voting to go on for the entire day," the Mission said.

During a phone call, Sen. Santiago expressed her sentiments about the countries who have given their word that they would vote for the Philippines. She said that out of the 192 General Assembly members, 142 promised to vote for RP. The majority is 97 and Santiago got 106 votes. But unfortunately Santiago lost in the Security Council elections. Out of the 15 members, 9 have give their word to vote for the Philippines. 8 is the majority however Santiago only got 5 votes.

She said that it was a matter of what we can offer to the other countries to vote for the Philippines. It was against our constitution to offer more than 40% of our resources to foreign countries that's why we lost votes to other countries. It's always going to be about power, and until we have any...we won't be heard as loud as we want to.