One of the most vilified personages of the Marcos and post-Marcos era is Juan Ponce Enrile, 92. He is accused of 15 charges of corruption by the BS Aquino III government and is just out on bail since August 2015 on humanitarian grounds per order of the Supreme Court.
Enrile allegedly received P172.8 million in bribe from his pork barrel money. Twenty-two senators helped themselves with pork barrel money. Only three were sent to jail by Aquino, Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla. The last two are still in a police prison camp.
Enrile is a man who changed the course of history. He is a veritable national hero for ending a 20-year dictatorship and for battling, for nearly two decades, communists and separatists rebels. He led the four-day People Power revolt in February 1986 that toppled the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
The strongman’s ouster led to two Aquino presidencies—Corazon Cojuangco Aquino’s, for six years and four months, and Benigno Simeon (BS) Cojuangco Aquino III’s, for six years until June 30, this year.
The Aquino mother-and-son reign (12 years and four months) is second only in length to Marcos’s 20.
In 54 years, from 1962 to 2016, Philippine presidents came from only six families.
Today, there are 25 million Filipino families. Only six families of 25 million families produced presidents. How is that for inclusion? Nearly all the six families were vile, corrupt and incompetent. Their respective reigns were their family’s golden age and the Filipino people’s recurring age of darkness and despair. In 1992, Enrile tried to run for president, but lost.
Cory put Enrile behind bars, for rebellion. So did her son, BS Aquino III, for alleged graft.
Without the country’s defense secretary of 17 years, Cory would not have been president and BS Aquino would have had all the time of the world with his PS3 or gallivanting in the various tourist spots. Before becoming president in 2010, Noynoy had not travelled farther than Hong Kong and USA.
Two factors account for Enrile’s rather poor image problem: The animosity of the Cojuangco-Aquino family and the consistent hostility of the Philippine Daily Inquirer towards him.
Ironically, Enrile is partly responsible for the birth of the Inquirer.
In his book, “Juan Ponce Enrile, A Memoir,” the senator relates how the Inquirer came into being. He writes:
“Eggie Apostol at the outbreak of the 1986 Edsa Revolution was running a monthly magazine called Mr. & Ms. She was also running a weekly tabloid-size, black and white version of Mr. & Ms. which chronicled the court hearings of Ninoy Aquino’s assassination. That weekly tabloid-size, black and white version of Mr. & Ms. was later replaced with The Weekly Inquirer, also a tabloid-size, black and white newspaper. The Weekly Inquirer was copyrighted and owned by the monthly Mr. & Ms. magazine and printed and published with funds of Mr. & Ms.”
“Eggie Apostol and Cristina happened to go to the same dress shop. Now and then they would see each other in the place of their common dressmaker. As a result, they developed some familiarity with each other and became casual acquaintances.”
“When Eggie Apostol lost her job in the Ramon Roces Publications—I cannot remember the exact date, but I think it was in the mid-70s—she and some of her friends set up a monthly magazine, the “Mr. & Ms.” Not long after, she convinced Cristina to invest in “Mr. & Ms.”
“The magazine fared badly and lost money. Its original equity capital was almost gone. Peping Apostol, Eggie’s husband, when asked to put more money in “Mr. & Ms.” refused.”
“Cristina helped Eggie Apostol in raising and putting in more money to support the magazine. Cristina even asked Ramon Siy Lay, a family friend, to invest in “Mr. & Ms.” And so did Luis Villafuerte.”
“In order to support the operation of Mr. & Ms., I asked my associates and friends in the business community to buy calendars and corporate giveaways from Mr. & Ms. As Chairman both of the Philippine Coconut Authority and of the United Coconut Planters Bank, I also gave Mr. & Ms. contracts to print materials for the coconut industry and the coconut farmers. These gave Mr. & Ms. some financial vigor and made it a more viable and stable enterprise.”
“Mr. & Ms. started to become critical of President Marcos, his wife, and his regime. This annoyed President Marcos. He talked to me about what he called “the unfriendly criticisms” of Mr. & Ms. President Marcos knew that Eggie Apostol was running Mr. & Ms. He also knew that she was very close to Cristina and almost a daily visitor for lunch or for dinner at home.”
“Eggie Apostol had an advantage over the rest (of the mosquito press—asl) because she enjoyed the protection of my family. The minions of the Palace and the NISA had not molested her or her group, which included Maximo Soliven, Luis Beltran, Betty Go-Belmonte and several others.”
“After the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in August 1983, Mr. & Ms. became a leading opposition paper in the country. It was at this point that Mr. & Ms. made money by itself. This was more so when the weekly tabloid-size, black and white Mr. & Ms. and its successor, The Weekly Inquirer—also a tabloid-size, black and white newspaper—began to appear on the streets. Mr. & Ms. magazine prospered and gained financial strength. However, none of the stockholders, except Eggie Apostol, received any income from “Mr. & Ms.”.”
Sometime in 1985, Eggie Apostol, Betty Go-Belmonte, Luis Beltran, Maximo Soliven, and some others published a daily newspaper.
Enrile recalls Eggie “was at that time the head and manager of Mr. & Ms. and also of the tabloid-size, black and white newspaper, The Daily Inquirer, which replaced The Weekly Inquirer. Thereafter, The Philippine Daily Inquirer started to appear daily on the streets, and The Daily Inquirer vanished.”
“Betty Go-Belmonte would later testify before the Securities and Exchange Commission in a case filed against Eggie Apostol for breach of fiduciary duty that she, Betty Go-Belmonte, thought all along that her partner in The Philippine Daily Inquirer was Mr. & Ms. magazine and not Eggie Apostol in her personal capacity. Betty Go-Belmonte categorically said under oath that she, as a matter of fact, knew that the assets and funds of Mr. & Ms. were used in the beginning to set up, publish, and maintain The Philippine Daily Inquirer.”
“Then Betty Go-Belmonte, Maximo Soliven, and several others had a falling-out with Eggie Apostol. I was told that the reason for the falling-out was the manner the financial resources of The Philippine Daily Inquirer were then being handled by Eggie Apostol. This led to the separation of Betty Go-Belmonte, Maximo Soliven, and the others from Eggie Apostol and The Philippine Daily Inquirer and the formation of The Philippine Star.”