MANILA – Juan Ponce Enrile, the architect of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos Senior’s two-decade martial legislation, died on Thursday (November 13), closing the chapter on the Southeast Asian nation’s most turbulent political historical past in recent times. He was 101.
His daughter, Katrina Ponce Enrile, introduced his dying through the social media platform X and mentioned her father had handed peacefully at their residence.
“It’s with profound love and gratitude that my father, Juan Ponce Enrile, peacefully returned to his Creator on November 13, 2025, at 4:21 p.m., surrounded by our household within the consolation of our residence,” she mentioned.
“It was his heartfelt want to take his remaining relaxation at residence, along with his household by his facet. We have been blessed to honor that want and to be with him in these sacred remaining moments,” she mentioned.
The Enrile household, probably the most highly effective political clans within the nation, needed to grieve privately. She didn’t give a reason behind dying, though one senator, Jinggoy Estrada, on Tuesday mentioned the elder Enrile was rushed to hospital earlier this week.
He served as Chief Presidential Authorized Counsel within the present administration till the time of his dying.
Enrile was the final among the many central gamers who performed a pivotal function within the nation’s Marcos Sr’s dictatorship. In 1986, he after which police constabulary chief, Fidel Ramos, broke away from Marcos Sr’s authorities, which had bankrupted state coffers and stifled opposition.
Hundreds have been killed or went lacking throughout the brutal regime, and the Marcos household is accused of plundering state coffers of some US$10 billion.
Their riot was backed by the influential Catholic church, which marshalled tens of millions of devoted alongside a serious thoroughfare to guard Enrile and Ramos. That resulted in a “individuals energy” revolution that finally compelled the Marcos household into exile in Hawaii in 1986.
He died there three years later, though his spouse, Imelda and kids have been subsequently allowed to fly residence.
The Marcos household has since rebuilt their political fortunes, and the alleged stolen wealth was by no means recovered in full. In 2022, his son and namesake, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, gained as president. A number of Marcos members of the family are both within the Senate or within the Home of Representatives.
Usually described as politically crafty, Enrile, a four-time elected senator, was the architect of the older Marcos’ martial legislation, which rights teams mentioned was designed to delay the dictator’s keep in energy. In declaring martial legislation, Marcos mentioned there was a must stifle criminality, citing the ambush that Enrile survived.
“I actually didn’t know why Marcos immediately determined to quote my ambush in justifying the declaration of Martial Legislation,” Enrile wrote in his memoir, which he argued additionally introduced “sweeping and dramatic adjustments” by restoring legislation and order to a “nice extent.”
A gaggle of activists jailed throughout martial legislation, nevertheless, mentioned no tears ought to be shed for Enrile, whom they labeled as a “chief architect and enabler” of the dictatorship.
“For 1000’s of victims of the Marcos dictatorship, Enrile will without end be remembered neither as a patriot nor a statesman, however as one of many chief architects and defenders of tyranny, repression, and corruption within the nation,” the Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (or SELDA), a company of former political prisoners, mentioned in a press release.
Enrile “justified the dictatorship by way of deception, together with the staged ambush on his convoy, which was later uncovered as a fabrication to rationalize the imposition of Marcos’ one-man rule.”
“Enrile utilized to the hilt the army and police’s function as devices of state terror. Below his command, these entities arrested, tortured, and induced the enforced disappearance of 1000’s of activists, college students, journalists, and atypical residents,” it mentioned.
“Enrile’s fingers are stained with the blood and struggling of numerous victims of martial legislation,” SELDA mentioned, including that Enrile in later years selected to distort and defend the Marcos household by “whitewashing their plunder and tyranny.”
His breakaway from Marcos was meant to “save his personal pores and skin” because the dictatorship crumbled, and never borne out of precept, it argued.
He later reconciled with the Marcos household and on the time of his dying, Enrile was Marcos Jr’s authorized adviser, “a chilling image of how impunity persists and historical past repeats itself underneath the present regime,” SELDA mentioned.
“His lengthy life was one spent within the service of energy, not of justice,” the group careworn, including that his dying “mustn’t shut the e-book on the crimes of martial legislation or on the corruption that he and his ilk have perpetuated.”
“As an alternative, it ought to strengthen the individuals’s resolve to proceed the battle for reality, justice and freedom,” the group mentioned.
Jason Gutierrez was head of Philippine information at BenarNews, an internet information service affiliated with Radio Free Asia (RFA), a Washington-based information group that lined many under-reported international locations within the area. A veteran overseas correspondent, he has additionally labored with The New York Instances and Agence France-Presse (AFP).
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