Filipinos forgive easily. It’s a cliché because it’s true. Do you remember Ferdinand Marcos’s star lawyer who became his Minister of Defense on account of a scheming ruthlessness that mirrored that of his master’s? Yup, that one: the master political operator who faked his own assassination in 1972 to create a pretext for implementing the most draconian executive order in Philippine history. You remember that order right? Proclamation 1081? You know, the declaration of martial law. It was only the declaration that allowed for assassinations, disappearances, tortures, and the politicization of our once relatively professional military.
Oh you remember! Yah, Juan Ponce Enrile: the trapo who dyes his hair more than Manny Villar, who sports shades that make him look like a Filipinized Mafioso. Well, you know what? He’s now a senator for the nth time and Senate President to boot. How? Because he’s switched sides more times than Mike Arroyo has had heart attacks.
He loves playing both sides of the fence, and he’s been doing it since the 60s. Did you know, for instance, that he was the Cojuangco family lawyer who inserted anti-agrarian reform loopholes in the government agreement that allowed Jose Cojuangco (PNoy’s grandfather) to purchase Hacienda Luisita? When his patron Marcos ordered the distribution of the land in the late 60s, Cory’s Kuya Pedro used Enrile legalese to hang on to the property.
Some people might be forgiving of Juan Ponce Enrile because of his role in the People Power revolution or, most likely, political convenience. PNoy, for one, is too preoccupied with former illegal president Arroyo to bother exhuming the skeletons hidden in the closet of men who threatened the unstable democracy that his mother heroically defended. If only Noy had his mother’s vitriol for the chief patron of Gringo and RAM when they launched those coups against a democratically elected government…
In case our president has forgotten, he should feel the shrapnel still lodged in his neck. If he’s comfortable with it, maybe he can show the scar to allies who abandoned Kiko Pangilinan for the trapo for all seasons.
I, for one, think that nobody should forgive Johnny Enrile. Even in the one moment in 1986 when he seemed to side with the people, his motives were ultimately self-serving. Enrile did not bolt the Marcos government to support Cory Aquino. He launched an abortive coup because it was increasingly clear that Marcos would not choose him as his successor. He only sided with Cory because he had no choice; the people who flocked to protect him in Crame were chanting Cory’s name, wearing yellow, and making Laban signs. Enrile was relieved that the people saved his life, but frustrated that he, the dictator in waiting, would have to cede power to an elected democrat. In his frustration, he would back the efforts of his former aide-de-camp and torturer sycophant Gringo Honasan to overthrow the Aquino regime (allow me to once again cite Alfred McCoy’s stellar book Closer than Brothers as a good reference for people curious about this history).
The fact that Johnny Enrile remains in power after all these years is a symbol of the continuity of patronage politics, turncoatism, impunity, and elite democracy in the Philippines. Reinstalling him as the third highest official in the country is an insult to millions of Filipinos clamoring for change.
Lisandro Claudio (“Leloy") is a PhD Candidate in the School of Historical Studies, the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is also a fellow of Action for Economic Reforms (aer.ph).
source: http://blogs.gmanews.tv/lisandro-claudio/index.php?/archives/3-JPE-again.html
