Women's Month honors successful, influential Pinays

MANILA, Philippines -  Feisty Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago has been listed as among the 10 most successful and the 20 most influential Filipinas recently named on the Internet. Watch related video

Santiago, the only nationally elected public official in the two lists, joins world-class singer Lea Salonga and young teen sensation Charice Pempengco, who are also on both lists.

Santiago, Salonga and Pempengco were listed by the powerful website, Female Network, as among its 10 awardees for its first-ever Womanity Awards, which recognized the power of women in society in celebration of International Women’s Day last March 8.

The website Female Network records some 4 million to 5 million page views per day.

The awardees are: Santiago for outstanding public service; Salonga, arts; Pempengco, entertainment; Jessica Soho, media; Ana Julaton, sports; stylist Liz Uy, fashion; Dr. Raquel Fortun, science; Bing Sibal- Limjoco, business; TV host Daphne Oseña-Paez, advocacy; model and TV personality Tweetie de Leon-Gonzales, special award.

Meantime, the globally famous search engine Google released the list of the Top 20 Most Influential Filipinas of 2010.

The local unit of Google.com said that the choice of the Top 20 was based on the volume of search queries that the Internet search engine company received last year.

The Top 20 was released also to mark the centennial celebration of International Women’s Day and as part of Google’s yearend Zeitgeist, meaning “spirit of the times.”

Santiago’s office quoted a statement of the search giant which said that the Top 20 individuals “grabbed the greatest online mindshare in 2010.”

Google’s Zeitgeist measures a person’s “influence” on the web by exploring millions of search queries that it receives everyday.

The search reveals the trends and the top key words which define the Filipinos’ “top-of-mind” in terms of searches.

According to Google, the Top 20 “most influential Filipinas” are entertainers except for a few, such as Santiago, journalist Doris Dumlao, designer Monique Lhuillier, and TV personality Korina Sanchez.

This year’s batch included Salonga; Pempengco; former presidential girlfriend and now TV show host Shalani Soledad; presidential sister and popular TV personality Kris Aquino; actress-host Ruffa Gutierrez; beauty queen Venus Raj; actress Angel Locsin; singer-actress Sarah Geronimo; Asia’s songbird Regine Velasquez; actress Heart Evangelista; actress Kristine Hermosa; TV show host Toni Gonzaga; megastar Sharon Cuneta; TV host Mariel Rodriguez; actress Bea Alonzo and veteran singer-actress Nora Aunor.