THE NEWS of Juan Ponce Enrile’s passing at 101 rippled through social media faster than most breaking news alerts. People reacted in wildly different ways: some offered condolences, others dusted off old family stories about curfews, raids, or uncles who never came home, while a few young Filipinos asked aloud — “Should we mourn him the same way the Senate did?”
That simple question captures the tension surrounding his death. It is not cruelty. It is clarity.
When someone like Enrile — whose life touched so many corners of our history — passes on, the real task is to face the full story, not just the parts he wanted remembered. Any social studies teacher or student paper adviser knows this dilemma well. When a complicated figure exits, we’re not asked to praise or attack, only to tell the truth. For educators who guard our shared memory, honesty matters. Without it, history becomes a buffet where we pick only what feels good and ignore what once hurt us.
There is no denying that Enrile was brilliant. Even critics admitted that he had the legal acumen to navigate the thorniest of political storms. His early life reads like a classic “from the province to the capital” narrative familiar to many educators who once taught a student from humble origins whose grit rewrote their destiny.
Enrile finished his pre-law and law degrees with honors at the Ateneo de Manila University and University of the Philippines, secured top marks in the bar, and even obtained a graduate degree from Harvard. In a different timeline, he might have been remembered the way we remember scholars who sharpened the country’s institutions.
But power has a way of reorienting destinies. When he began working closely with Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the 1960s, his brilliance was placed inside a system where talent did not simply rise; it was weaponized. According to scholars such as Manapat (1991), Enrile’s loyalty and legal dexterity quickly made him indispensable to Marcos’ inner circle. This partnership, at first administrative and intellectual, evolved into something heavier, darker, and more consequential than law books or public lectures.
The turning point came in the early 1970s when Enrile, as defense secretary, became a central actor in the machinery that built Martial Law. Historical records, including those compiled by Amnesty International (1977) and the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP, 1980s), consistently identify his office as one of the primary administrative engines of arrest, detention, and surveillance during the 14-year dictatorship.
Teachers who grew up hearing their parents whisper about classmates who “suddenly disappeared” or relatives who returned from the camps with eyes that no longer matched their age often connect these memories with the policies crafted and implemented under Enrile’s authority. This is why remembering him solely for his role in the 1986 uprising is both incomplete and dangerous. It conveniently places a spotlight on one heroic hour while leaving the preceding years in the dark.
The alleged ambush on his car in September 1972 — used by Marcos as justification to sign Proclamation 1081 — was later admitted by Enrile himself, in multiple interviews leading to EDSA, to have been staged. This is not folklore. It is documented by journalists, including those referenced in the work of Saguisag (2014), who called the contradictions “terminological inexactitudes.” The point is not vengeance. It is accountability through the truth.
Even after Martial Law, the narrative becomes more labyrinthine. Enrile’s dramatic break with Marcos during the four days of EDSA is a chapter that many Filipinos grew up hearing in classrooms. Teachers leaned on that story because it showed, at least on the surface, that people in power can choose conscience over position. But as scholars like Lasco (2025) note, longevity sometimes distorts legacy. What happened after EDSA was not a serene path toward democratic strengthening.
Instead, the years that followed saw coup attempts, political maneuverings, and destabilizations that made it difficult for the newly restored democracy to breathe. Enrile’s involvement in the early destabilization of the Aquino administration is not rumor. It is part of the public record, from the 1986 “God Save the Queen” plot to the tensions that led to his removal from the Cabinet.
For teachers who spent those years calming classrooms during brownouts and shortages, it was exhausting to see the country wobble again when it had barely found its footing. The trauma of instability is real. The younger generation may not feel the same fear when tanks appear on highways, but those who lived through those fragile years still hold their breath at the memory.
As he grew older, Enrile held positions that made some people trust him and others uneasy. He impressed many during the 2012 Corona impeachment trial. But the goodwill didn’t last long — by 2013 he was linked to the PDAF scam and the fake NGOs tied to Janet Napoles. He was eventually acquitted in 2024, but the story stuck in people’s minds. (To be continued)/PN
