Updated:July 11, 2021, 2:36 P.M.
Updated: May 20, 2021, 7:55 A.M.
(Editor’s note) In 2013 while vacationing in the Philippines, I wrote this piece about Enrile who was in news at the time for the pork barrel issue. Currently, he is again in the news for defending President Duterte’s stand on China’s encroachment on Philippine waters.)
Enrile the ultimate ‘trapo’
By Ted Alcuitas
on 01 February 2013
in Editorial
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Philippine Asian News Today
For the past 40 years the name of Juan Ponce Enrile has been embedded in the Philippine political scene.
Recently, fresh from the abortive Reproductive Health Bill fight for which he had a leading role, he once again hugged the headlines for his brazen display of arrogance and typical disdain for the Filipino people whom he purportedly serves.
Using his discretion as Senate President, he ‘gifted’ his colleagues with P1.5 million each just before the end of the year. He also made sure that he punished his perceived enemies in the Upper Chamber with lesser largesse – only P250, 000 each for the four.
Understandably, there was such a furore over this display of sticking his dirty fingers into the coffers of the nation to reward his allies.
This at a time when millions of Filipinos in the typhoon stricken areas of Davao and Compostela Valley were still awaiting much needed help. Even the United Nations called for an extra $40 billion dollars in aid.
And here was Enrile, doling out the people’s money as if it was his own.
In his typical cunning and devious manner, he explained that his actions were perfectly legal and within the bounds of his senatorial prerogative as Senate President.
The controversy generated and degenerated into one of the Senate’s dirtiest debates that turned into a personal one for the protagonists.
The Machiavellian Enrile hit back at his critic – Senator Allan Peter Cayetano by bringing out a supposed unpaid debt of the Senators’ late father to Enrile in the tune of P32 million.
Not to be outdone, Cayetano retaliated by accusing Enrile’s Chief of Staff Gigi Reyes as acting as if she is an elected senator prompting Reyes to call Cayetano a hypocrite.
Cayetano did not just stopped at accusing Reyes. He also hinted that Reyes was a paramour of Enrile, an accusation that fits Enrile’s reputation as a ‘babaero’.
The circus continued with Enrile denying the accusation pleading old age and stating that at this point of his life “he could no longer do it”. He even dared an interviewer to let him (Enrile) undergo an erectile dysfunction test just to prove that he is not capable of having affairs.
True to form, Enrile survived a move to dethrone him as Senate President, proving once again his enduring resiliency.
Enrile, for all his faults, is an astute player in the game of politics and embodies the attributes of the traditional Philippine politician or ‘trapo’.
He does not hesitate to shake the hand of the devil – orchestrating and serving under the dictator Marcos’ martial law regime.
In the Reproductive Health Bill imbroglio he ingratiated himself to the Philippine bishops and kissed their hands, acting as the vanguard in the fight to defeat the bill.
While he lost the RH Bill fight ignominiously, it is difficult to predict whether this ageing politico has come to the end of his rope.
If so, the Philippines would have lost one of its most colourful, albeit also one of the most corrupt politicians in its history. – Ted Alcuitas, Senior Editor.
Footnote to history:
During the eight anniversary of martial law in September 1980, I was in the Philippines on vacation. I was in my home province of Cebu and covered the demonstrations against martial law in the city and was picked and briefly detained by the military. Before my return to Canada, I was able to interview then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile at his office at Camp Crame. The interview was arranged by broadcaster Paquito ‘Rey’ Pacheco who wanted to immigrate to Canada through my sponsorship. Pacheco’s radio show was the only station allowed by Marcos to continue during martial law and was owned by the powerful Iglesia ni Cristo sect (INC). It was on this station that the declaration of martial law was read by his Press Secretary Francisco Tatad on September 21, 1972. Pacheco eventually immigrated to Canada with his family and worked for my paper, Silangan, in Winnipeg for a year. When Marcos’ arch critic Senator Benigno Aquino Sr. was assassinated on August 21, 1983 upon returning to the Philippines, I helped formed the anti-Marcos group in Winnipeg – August Twenty One Movement (ATOM), the only organized opposition by the diaspora against the dictatorship.