Heart Evangelista reminisces Miriam Santiago’s charity work every Christmas

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MANILA, Philippines — With Christmas Day nearing, actress Heart Evangelista reminisced how the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago did charitable works by donating rice every holiday season.

“As I remember my Tita Miriam this Christmas, my memory is flooded with wonderful flashbacks of the remarkable woman that she was,” Evangelista wrote in an Instagram post on Friday.

The actress shared a photo of Santiago taken in 2000 and said, “Here you can see her giving away rice to our brothers and sisters in need. This started way back in 1989 and has been a yearly tradition ever since.”

Santiago, according to Evangelista, “understood how the simple act of sharing made the Christmas season of thousands of families an even merrier one” and this is something she “deeply loved and admired about her.”

Evangelista said the Youth Reform Movement Philippines (YRM-PH) has been keeping Santiago’s legacy alive by continuing the late senator’s work through “Pamaskong Bigas ni Miriam.”

The YRM-PH is a youth organization “that empowers young Filipinos for civic efficiency and social responsibility.”

“Thank you to the beautiful people of Youth Reform Movement PH for working so hard for our brothers and sisters. She may no longer be here, but her memory will live on forever,” she said.

Evangelista has been open about her close relationship with Santiago, even referring to the late senator as her “second mother.”

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