Enrile’s troubling legacy

In the unduly long reign of Ferdinand Marcos and the era since the 1986 People Power Revolution—a period spanning almost half a century—Juan Ponce Enrile has played an extraordinary role in Philippine public life.

A consummate lawyer, he has held over the years a series of prominent posts in the government with some degree of distinction. He was pivotal in a time of national turmoil: an authoritarian regime that was rapidly losing credibility, disastrous economic policies, a surging communist insurgency, and a Muslim secessionist movement in southern Philippines—each threatening to bring the republic to its knees.

On top of all this, Enrile was constantly engaged in a savage battle for survival in that regime. Courtiers in the so-called New Society endlessly schemed to dislodge  him from the graces of Malacañang.

In that milieu, Enrile was essentially a gray eminence in the tradition of Cardinal Richelieu. To survive required a talent for timing, a dogged fortitude, a capacity to read and manipulate others, and a brinksmanship that took him to the edges of a political abyss.

He performed his duties in an  environment that was notorious for its viciousness and corruption. It took an iron will and extraordinary fortitude to exercise control in a miasma of duplicity and in an increasingly dysfunctional government.

This is not to say that  Enrile was irreproachable in his conduct or that he was blameless for the excesses of that regime. Indeed, he has held himself accountable.

Given his temperament and idiosyncrasies, he was never a man who lent himself to easy categorization. At the outset of his 16-year stewardship of the defense establishment, he comfortably juxtaposed national interest with basic ethical norms. He struggled to give soft illusions to the hard power that was martial law.

But where men rule by force, to question their decisions is often to court grave danger. Driven by the instinct of self-preservation, Enrile finally spoke truth to power. In the end, when the distinction between national interest and the political fortunes of Marcos lost its blur, Enrile astutely framed the national interest in compelling moral imperatives. He called on Marcos to step down.

In that upheaval that banished Marcos, Enrile and Fidel V. Ramos emerged as icons. Yet Enrile’s role as the architect and administrator of martial law continues to harshly haunt him to this day.

What is clear from that momentous episode is Enrile as a master political player with the ruthlessness necessary to achieve his goals. Since then, he has been a polarizing figure in the great political and governance issues of our time.

It is, for this reason, vexing to see him embroiled in the shenanigans over a public fund, an issue that has compromised both his probity and prudence. Is it possible that Enrile, one of the most erudite senators of the realm, has been less than scrupulous in managing his share of the Priority Development Assistance Fund?

In the mid-1960s, soon after joining the government, he was scrupulous enough to incorporate himself and transfer all his assets to Jaka, the family corporation. The setup would allow easy accounting for his assets and sources of funding. It would also protect him from the enemies he knew he would make.

In Cory Aquino’s new dispensation, suspicions that Enrile had amassed ill-gotten wealth festered. These qualms, coupled with the coup attempts against the Aquino administration and Enrile’s overarching effort to preserve the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, intensified the distrust between the president and her defense

secretary.

By late November 1986, Enrile had been dismissed from the Cabinet. President Cory Aquino formed a special commission to probe his assets and corporate holdings. After a nine-month investigation, all the commission could pin on him was a face-saving tax deficiency of P50,000.

Enrile, perhaps more than other leaders in high public office, functioned continuously in a high-stress environment. Constantly challenged by their responsibilities for people, organizations and outcomes, many good leaders often find it difficult to maintain their equilibrium and discipline.

If they thrive in a world of adoration and adulation, they also operate under severe pressures, under compulsions of seduction and sycophancy, giving them a sense of invincibility. All this provokes erratic decision-making and, consequently, dubious decisions.

This is why leaders who outlive their utility inevitably tarnish and diminish their own achievements. This is why the turning points of Enrile’s career—as a dynamic bureaucrat, as a liberator at Edsa, and as Senate president—are indelibly marred and overshadowed today by his indictment on charges of plunder.

In a society that views money as a sign of greatness, Enrile’s stunning rise from grinding poverty to immense wealth and power is the stuff of legend. Sadly, that legend has taken on a Kafkaesque twist: His decline and disgrace—even if fortuitous—attest that wielding prolonged, concentrated power can be mercilessly corrosive.

Rex D. Lores is a member of the Philippine Futuristics Society.