Juan Ponce Enrile, architect of Philippine martial rule and savvy political survivor, dies at 101

Mr Juan Ponce Enrile – a powerful and influential political figure whose career spanned the Philippines’ most turbulent decades – died on Nov 13. He was 101 years old.

His death was announced by his daughter, Ms Katrina Ponce Enrile, in posts on X and Instagram.

Ms Enrile said her father died at 4.21pm, “surrounded by our family in the comfort of our home”.

“He dedicated much of his life to the service of the Filipino people,” she said. “At this time, we humbly ask for the public’s understanding as our family takes a brief moment to grieve privately and honour his memory together in quiet and in peace.”

Mr Enrile’s death closes a long and often controversial chapter in Philippine history, one that he helped to write, rewrite and survive.

He was the architect of the martial rule that the dictator Ferdinand Marcos wielded to eliminate opposition to his rule and create a culture of mass kleptocracy that plunged the Philippines into crippling, widespread poverty.

But then, Mr Enrile also played a pivotal role in a military coup that ousted the Marcos regime in 1986.

Thereafter, he pursued a flourishing political career that saw him survive six presidents and allegations of political destabilisation and large-scale corruption.

Mr Enrile switched sides again and helped the Marcos family in their remarkable political comeback after they returned from exile.

After Mr Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the late dictator’s son, won the 2022 presidential election, he named Mr Enrile as his chief legal counsel.

“We say goodbye to one of the most enduring and respected public servants our country has ever known,” Mr Marcos said in a statement, adding that Mr Enrile “dedicated his life to serving the Filipino people, helping guide the country through some of its most challenging and defining moments”.

Remaining active in politics well into his 90s, Mr Enrile had been fodder for countless internet memes about his age and seeming “immortality”.

There were memes quoting him as saying he was in the Garden of Eden when Eve bit the forbidden apple, that when God said, “Let there be light”, he was the one who turned the switch on, and that he lost part of the hearing because of the “Big Bang”.

His granddaughter said Mr Enrile took these jabs in stride, and was even “flattered” by them.

Till his death, the memes kept coming.

“Congratulations, YOU outlived Juan Ponce Enrile,” said a user with the account “Juan Ponce Enrile outlives no more”.

Born on Feb 14, 1924, Mr Enrile was the illegitimate son of Mr Alfonso Ponce Enrile, a powerful regional politician, and Ms Petra Furagganan, who came from a poor peasant family.

His early life was marked by hardship and separation, but he crept his way into positions of power and influence with his intelligence and grit.

After finishing high school as valedictorian, he attended the state-run University of the Philippines, where he earned a law degree, graduating cum laude and topping the 1949 bar examination with one of the highest scores in its history.

He later obtained a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School.

His legal credentials and connections eventually caught the attention in the mid-1950s of then Representative Ferdinand Marcos, himself a rising political star.

After he became president in 1965, Marcos appointed Mr Enrile as a finance undersecretary, and then head of the Bureau of Customs.

Mr Enrile later served as justice minister and then defence minister.

Martial law enforcer

Mr Enrile’s name became indelibly linked to the martial law years from 1972 to 1981, one of the most polarising periods in Philippine history.

As defence minister, he was instrumental in planning and implementing the declaration of martial law by Marcos on Sept 21, 1972.

Officially, the declaration was justified as a response to alleged communist and separatist threats.

Critics, however, have long accused Mr Enrile – alongside Marcos – of engineering it to consolidate authoritarian control.

Mr Enrile oversaw the expansion of the military’s influence, the suppression of dissent and the arrest of opposition figures, including Marcos’ main rival, former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.

Amnesty International estimates Marcos’ security forces either killed, tortured, sexually abused, mutilated or arbitrarily detained tens of thousands of opponents.

More than 11,000 victims have been officially recognised and compensated.

In later years, he would alternately defend and distance himself from those actions.

In his 2012 memoir, he insisted that he was a reluctant participant who served to “stabilise the country”, though many historians have disputed this narrative.

In a statement released on Nov 13, a group of former political detainees said Mr Enrile would “forever be remembered neither as a patriot nor a statesman, but as one of the chief architects and defenders of tyranny, repression and corruption in the country”.

Turning on his master

Mr Enrile’s greatest act of political defiance – and the one that changed the course of Philippine history – came in February 1986.

Following a disputed presidential election between Marcos and Mr Aquino’s widow, Mrs Corazon Aquino, tensions within the regime reached a breaking point.

Together with then police chief Lieutenant-General Fidel Ramos, Mr Enrile withdrew support from Marcos and barricaded himself inside Camp Aguinaldo.

Their defection sparked the Edsa “People Power” revolt, a four-day peaceful uprising that ended Marcos’ more than 20-year strongman rule.

Following the revolution, Mr Enrile served briefly as defence minister under Mrs Aquino but was later dismissed after he was accused of fomenting dissent within the military.

Nevertheless, his political resilience proved unmatched.

He returned to the national stage as a senator in 1987, serving for three decades.

As a lawmaker, he was known for his mastery of parliamentary rules and his keen grasp of lawmaking, often steering debates with precision and authority.

In 2008, he was elected Senate president, a position he held until 2013.

During this time, he presided over the historic impeachment trial of then Chief Justice Renato Corona, earning both praise for fairness and criticism for political manoeuvring.

Despite controversies – including his 2013 detention over alleged involvement in a pork barrel fund scandal, from which he was later released on humanitarian grounds and acquitted just days before his death – Mr Enrile remained a figure of fascination and endurance.

His political survival through dictatorship, revolution, and democracy made him a symbol of both adaptability and moral ambiguity.