Senators, led by Senate President Chiz Escudero, unanimously passed a resolution expressing their profound sympathy and sincere condolences to the family of former Senator Santanina Tillah Rasul, whom they honored as a trailblazer for opening doors to women and Muslims.
Rasul, who passed away on November 28, 2024 at the age of 94, dedicated her life to public service, first as a public school teacher mentoring young children, then a barrio councilor and later as a provincial board member of Sulu. In 1987, she made history as the first and only Muslim woman to be elected and re-elected to the Senate under the senatorial slate of then President Corazon Aquino.
“Senator Rasul’s story — of enduring through conflict while fighting for peace, rising to power while remaining deeply grounded, and serving the people within and outside government — is truly worth remembering and emulating,” Escudero said in his sponsorship speech of Senate Resolution No. 1244.
The veteran legislator recalled how Rasul fought for the womenfolk long before the #MeToo movement gave a megaphone to women’s issues, “allocating seats in local councils, unlocking doors in the military, and earmarking funds for their advocacies.”
“And if hashtags had existed then, she would have made ‘#BLM’ — #BangsamoroLivesMatter — her rallying cry.
“And if hashtags had existed then, she would have made ‘#BLM’ — #BangsamoroLivesMatter — her rallying cry as she sought to sway those who saw Mindanao as a distant curiosity and pigeonholed Muslims in their unfair stereotypes,” the Senate chief added.
One of the notable laws penned by Rasul was Republic Act No. 6850, also known as the “Rasul Law,” which granted civil service eligibility to government employees who have worked in a career civil service position for at least seven years.
She is also the author of R.A. 7192 or the Women in Development and Nation Building Act that led to the dismantling of discrimination against women and opened the doors of the Philippine Military Academy to female cadets.
Rasul also championed the passage of R.A. 6949, which declared March 8 of every year as National Women’s Day; R.A. 7168, which elevated the Philippine Normal College to the Philippine Normal University; and the provisions on women’s representation in local legislative bodies contained in the Local Government Code of 1991.
“It now falls upon us to continue the wars which Senator Rasul waged: wars against ignorance and illiteracy, and for integrity and inclusion.”
“She contributed greatly to the edifice of laws under whose canopy all men and women can pray, live, work, and love as they wish. It now falls upon us to continue the wars which Senator Rasul waged: wars against ignorance and illiteracy, and for integrity and inclusion,” Escudero said.
After her stint in the Senate, Rasul went on to work for the attainment of lasting peace in Mindanao as a member of the government panel that negotiated the signing of the peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front in 1996.
“Like the pristine seas surrounding her hometown of Siasi in Sulu, the original ‘island girl’ saw, with full clarity, Mindanao’s untapped potential and its greatest barrier: rampant illiteracy, exacerbated by decades of neglect and conflict. She faced these challenges, not with downcast eyes, but with long-reaching vision and purposeful action,” the seasoned lawmaker said.
Rasul also established the Magbassa Kita Foundation whose mission is to promote literacy, poverty alleviation, and peace and development particularly in Mindanao.
In 1990, coinciding with the International Literacy Year, she was appointed as the Honorary Ambassador of UNESCO.
“To Senator Rasul and her beloved family, and to all those whose causes were once her concern, we pledge to continue her legacy. To borrow the words from a great American Senator whom she once quoted in one of her speeches on the Senate floor: ‘Her work goes on, her cause endures, her hopes still live, and her dreams shall never die,'” Escudero said.
Rasul was a true intellectual, graduating valedictorian at Laum, Tabawan Elementary School, first honor at Sulu High School, and cum laude at the University of the Philippines with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. She also earned her master’s degree in national security administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines and doctoral units in public administration from the U.P. College of Public Administration.
