JPE is dead: Is Juan Ponce Enrile worth the public adulation, condemnation?

Enrile was one of Rolex 12, a group of 12 men Marcos trusted so much he gave each a Rolex watch for their wholehearted support in the plot to declare martial law.

The rest were Generals Fabian Ver, Fidel Ramos, Romeo Espino, Rafael Zagala, Ignacio Paz, Jose Rancudo, Tomas Diaz, Alfredo Montoya, Rear Admiral Hilario Ruiz, Col. Romeo Gatan, and industrialist Danding Cojuangco, Marcos’ No. 1 business crony.

First among equals

What set him apart from the rest? Enrile was, in fact, not just a supporter—he provided the legal basis justifying the powers of the presidency to declare martial law. And he was its chief implementor.

For that, Enrile was loved as much as he was feared, like Danding, especially at the height of the dictatorship.

Those who feared Enrile, like those who feared Danding, believed they had some reasons in believing so. Those who loved them believed they had all the right reasons for doing so.

They were said to have been two of the very few who could see the strongman without prior notice in Malacañang, next only to former First Lady Imelda Marcos and General Ver, then the armed forces chief of staff.

He was behind the controversial coco levy funds, like Danding. Former Rep. Oscar Santos of the 3rd District of Quezon Province, a coconut country, had questioned their wealth arising from the funds, calling it a joke and a great injustice to coconut farmers.

Throughout martial law, Enrile was a loyal Marcos soldier.

Recalling his first encounter with Enrile at his office at the Ministry of National Defense in Camp Aguinaldo in October 1983, two months after former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. was murdered at the Manila airport, Nene Pimentel, then a political detainee, wrote in his book, Martial Law in the Philippines: My Story:

“I got the impression of a person who exuded the air of omniscience and omnipotence—attributes that catechism taught me were God’s alone. Indeed, at that time Enrile was perceived by everyone who followed the political developments in the country to be the third person of the unholy trinity holding the levers of power in Malacanang: Marcos, Imelda, and Enrile. Thus, at our first meeting, he struck me—he probably wanted me to believe that, too—as possessing godlike martial law powers over the lives of the people and the destiny of the nation.”

Pimentel continued, “I had barely warmed my seat when he launched into a nonstop 15-minute monologue about the responsibility of the Opposition’s need to unite and work with the Marcos government for the good of the nation. I did not quite understand his concern, but I kept quiet until he stopped haranguing me on the futility of resisting martial law.”

In the Marcos’ palace, Enrile was primus inter pares, first among equals. But he wouldn’t do anything without the godfather’s go-signal, even if it meant defying the Supreme Court.

Tolentino’s view

Marcos’ foreign secretary Arturo Tolentino, recalled how Enrile behaved like the dictator’s docile carabao.

He was referring to the high court’s order to release suspected communist leaders Cynthia Nolasco and Willie Tolentino, who were both arrested in August 1984, three years after martial law was supposed to have been lifted.

Nolasco and Tolentino had been the subject of a complaint at the prosecutor’s office with rebellion, a non-bailable offense. But the prosecutor charged them only with illegal possession of firearms, allowing bail for their temporary release.

The military refused to free the suspected rebels, the case eventually reached the tribunal, which ruled that the two were entitled to post bail and be granted temporary liberty after several months.

In his book Voice of Dissent, Tolentino wrote: “Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile refused to release the two in spite of the order of the Supreme Court. He said he was only a custodian, and without proper approval by the President, he could not release them.”

Until then, Tolentino, an acknowledged constitutionalist, had high respect for Enrile, a fellow UP law graduate.

Enrile was a co-founder and principal partner of Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz or ACCRA, then the country’s most influential law firm, but he remained unnamed as a partner even until he resigned to concentrate as Marcos’ defense minister, but he later put up his own—the Ponce Enrile Cayetano law firm, or Pecabar, along with compañero Rene Cayetano.

Smarter than the others

In his book Some Are Smarter Than The Others, The History of Marcos’ Crony Capitalism, activist, scholar, and researcher Jose Ricardo Manapat wrote: “Juan Ponce Enrile enjoyed a long, cozy relationship with Marcos and played important roles in his administration. Marcos amply rewarded Enrile’s loyalty by showering him with choice government positions and control of the most lucrative areas of the economy.”

Manapat was the director of the Records Management and Archives of the Office of the Philippines, from 1996 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2008. In 1980, he fled to the United States in exile. He returned in 1986.

Enrile first served Marcos during the presidential campaign in 1965, according to Manapat. He bagged the post of Customs commissioner after Marcos’ election—a post coveted by some of his campaign colleagues.

“There is no known evidence of impropriety on the part of Enrile during this time,” said Manapat in the book.

Enrile’s loyalty would earn him further rewards from Marcos.

“It was later on, when Enrile was already Secretary of Defense, that we (heard) charges concerning his involvement in the smuggling of goods.”

Enrile restless

“Enrile was not content with an appointive position. He later made a political gamble and resigned from the defense department to run in the 1971 senatorial elections,” the book said.

Enrile suffered a “humiliating” loss. In spite of this, Marcos reappointed him to DND, “a post he has used to great advantage until the end of Marcos rule.”

As DND chief, Enrile controlled the biggest appropriation in the national budget.

“He was also the owner, a major investor, a director, or had some form of influence over numerous corporations in areas such as sugar, logging, shipping, coconut, banking, real estate, motorcycling, manufacturing, and agri business.

“He was named chairman of key government institutions such as the Philippine National Bank, National Investment and Development Corporation, Philippine Coconut Authority, United Coconut Planters Bank, United Coconut Mills, apart from directorships in other government corporations.”

Man for himself

But some things were not enough.

In the years that followed, Enrile flew and flung the political spectrum. Thanks to the worsening friction between him and Ver brought out in the open with the Aquino assassination. Surprisingly, the man on top of the military establishment had apparently been left out of the plot to kill Aquino.

The public quietly saw Enrile becoming his own man, but obviously becoming a man for himself.

Marcos trusted Enrile, probably not having any idea that Enrile had been wanting a bigger, wider space for himself.

In his book, Sen. Tolentino, Marcos’ running mate in the 1986 snap elections, revealed that Malacanang got wind of a coup plot in mid-December 1985. Enrile had a group of soldiers, called Reform the Armed Forces Movement, to arrest—kill, if need be—Marcos and the first family.

Plot to take Malacañang

They were in constant touch with Major Ed Doromal of the Presidential Security Group, but this soldier changed his mind and brought everything to the attention of Ver’s son, Col. Irwin Ver.

Before daybreak of Feb. 22, 1986, Enrile’s men learned of Ver’s preparations and realized they had been betrayed.

“Enrile was informed of what happened. The plan to attack Malacanang was frozen. Enrile knew (his) arrest was imminent. He called up General Ramos for support,” Tolentino’s book said.

“Obviously fearing the worst, Enrile, appearing shaken, called upon the people to Camp Crame to help them. He had a small armed group around him. (Manila Archbishop Jaime) Cardinal Sin and Corazon Aquino’s brother-in-law, Butz Aquino, went over radio and earnestly appealed to the people to gather at EDSA to protect the beleaguered Enrile and Ramos.” The rest, as they say, is history.

After the revolution, Enrile was expected to have been a different man. But it was not meant to be. He had been linked subsequently to plots to oust the Aquino administration, forcing Aquino to kick him out of her Cabinet.

He once said if he did not sacrifice himself by spearheading a mutiny, it would take more decades for the street protesters to oust Marcos. The editor in chief of another daily rebuffed him in her column: Enrile would have been jailed or killed, if the protesters did not join him in the mutiny.

Tale of 2 Enriles

Possibly, to some extent, he tried to rehabilitate his image in the last years of his life. But then as he proved crisis after crisis in his political career, Enrile was nothing but a dogged fighter with an amusing ability to bounce back after defeat.

But he did. He won a Senate seat in the 1987 elections dominated by Aquino candidates.

Shortly after the failed December 1989 coup, Enrile was charged with a crime complex with rebellion.

Until then, those who believed that Saint Cory could walk on water thought that would be the end of Enrile’s political career.

But it didn’t. It only marked the beginning of a new Enrile, swinging from one pendulum to another.

By then, people would see that there were two Enriles: the one who could aspire to the height of a statesman who could put his finger on great issues of his time; the other one, the same old JPE, the same old man that cannot easily be trusted.

Enrile the Statesman

Then a member of the House of Representatives in 1992, Enrile stood up on the session floor to demand the repeal of Republic Act 1700, known as the Anti-Subversion Law.

RA 1700 was a 1957 Philippine law that outlawed the Communist Party of the Philippines and similar subversive organizations. It penalized membership and affiliation with these groups, deeming their activities a threat to national security.

It prompted Batangas Rep. Hernando Perez, once the leader of a group of human rights lawyers called Bonifacio, to stand up and express surprise at how Enrile could seek repeal of the law he used to order the arrest of Marcos critics in politics, the Church, and in the media during martial law.

In his book Will The Gentleman Yield, Perez recalled the exchange between him and Enrile.

Perez: Mr. Speaker, my question is this: Since when did the distinguished gentleman from Cagayan arrive at the conclusion that the RA 1700 has become irrelevant and obsolete?

Enrile: Very long ago, Mr. Speaker. I think if my distinguished colleague from Batangas was unaware of it, I would like to give him a little bit of information that even while I was serving under the old regime, I advocated early legalization of the Communist Party which, in effect, was a call for the removal from the statute book of RA 1700.”

The law was repealed in 1992. Applause, Enrile was even given.

Enrile: The same old man

In May 1995, Enrile ran for senator under the administration ticket and showed effortlessly that he was the same old man.

While campaigning in Tarlac, the bailiwick of the Aquinos, Enrile told the crowd about his role at the EDSA revolution, getting away with some exaggeration. He skipped telling the crowd of his role under the martial law, withholding information that he was its prime proponent who ordered the arrest of the province’s favorite son, Benigno Aquino Jr.

While campaigning in Ilocos Norte, Enrile itemized a long litany of the many roles Marcos had given him under his administration, including during martial law. But he did not tell the crowd that he was one of the key players of the EDSA revolution.

He won, but charges of electoral fraud, dubbed as “Dagdag-Bawas,” marred his victory.

He was not unseated, nevertheless. “Gusto ko happy ka.” That was Enrile’s battle cry in one of his later senatorial campaigns. Again, he won, which prepared him to preside later over the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

That Corona was convicted would have been the best highlight of his career, a great comeback, reminiscent of Lazarus coming back from the dead.

But it was spoiled when he was accused of involvement in the multi-million pork barrel scandal.

Until then, Enrile showed himself as the same old man—checkered, with a dangerous past, with some people saying that indeed he could not easily be trusted.

In an interview published by the weekly Mr. & Ms. Magazine sometime after Marcos Sr. lifted martial law in 1981, Enrile summarized his life in the face of all his critics.

He recalled a Spanish philosopher who said: “Yo soy lo que soy.” Translated, it means: “I am what I am.” And so Enrile opined that he could neither be good just because people spoke well of him. Nor could he be bad just because people spoke ill of him. “Yo soy lo que soy. And I shall always be the same.”

But the death of Enrile speaks volumes on the quality of senators now who, most of them, sang hosannas to the man, the implementer of martial law. They stopped short of calling for his burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Most of these were a bungled portrait, we must say, making one where these people were at the height of the dictatorship.

It makes a mockery of the thousands of others, faceless and nameless, who defined their fight for freedom with their blood.

If lawmakers like Salonga, Pimentel, Mitra, Joker Arroyo, and Rene Saguisag were still around, it would have been a different story.

Commenting on the death and burial of the older Marcos, a Liberal Party statement said LP leaders mourned the death of the dictator, because until now, a generation later, those who survived still cry for justice for those who perished.

Given the senators’ statements, the account of some traditional media, now run by younger men and women, likewise left much to be desired.

Garbage in, garbage out, the generational vacuum slips so often such that when the low-key, low-profile billionaire Judy Araneta died, the sum and substance of their stories, especially the headlines, described her as the mother of former Sen. Mar Roxas. They didn’t know the woman who funded the Liberal Party of the Philippines, wounded at the Plaza Miranda bombing? The woman whose family owns Cubao?

We wonder what people would have to say now of Salonga, Tanada, Diokno, Pimentel, Arroyo, Saguisag, and those whose names were etched at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, all victims of the dictatorship?

It was probably good for Enrile that he lived long enough, outlived mostly everyone who vividly remembers him as the chief implementer of martial rule, and died in the face of troubling but managed social media.

He lasted more than 100 years at a time when the mostly younger generation now leads newsrooms, so young they were at a loss if the former senator was a hero or a heel.

Indeed, so many mourned the death of Enrile, thus far the longest living public official, because until now, more than a generation later, those who survived him still cry for justice for those who perished. Let the die be cast.