Miriam is most followed senator on FB

MANILA, Philippines - Despite her being sidelined for over a year by various ailments including lung cancer, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s popularity on social media continues to rise.

According to a statement released by Santiago’s office, the senator has managed to amass a total of 2.6 million followers on her Facebook page as of March 18 this year, or double compared to a year ago. She is the most followed on Facebook among senators with Facebook accounts, her office said.

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano and Sen. Francis Escudero were next to Santiago with 543,744 and 491,123 followers, respectively.

Santiago’s office revealed that Sens. Manuel Lapid, Ramon Revilla Jr. and Vicente Sotto have no personal Facebook accounts.

On Twitter, Santiago’s office noted that her account has a total of 1.3 million followers as of March 18, up from 649,000 during the same period in 2014.

Sen. Pia Cayetano has the second most number of Twitter followers with 359,330.

Just like in Facebook, Escudero has the third highest number of followers with 220,143.

It was noted that Sen. Sergio Osmeña III recently started his own Twitter account and has 31 followers so far.

Lapid, Sotto and Ralph Recto do not have official Twitter accounts, according to Santiago’s office.

When compared to other national officials of the country, Santiago trailed only President Aquino, who has 4.2 million followers on Facebook and close to 2.5 million on Twitter.

A far third from Santiago is Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II, who has 679,107 followers on Facebook and 446,175 on Twitter.

Santiago has been battling stage four lung cancer since June last year and continues to struggle with her chronic fatigue syndrome.

She is still on official medical leave from the Senate, but whenever possible, she holds public hearings.

The senator also filed the most number of bills and resolutions in the 16th Congress as of the end of 2014.