amazing enrile #cj trial

17 days into the trial and senate president and presiding chair juan ponce enrile, at 88, continues to astound.  he has not faltered in any way, not in the smallest detail of the case, or procedure, or language.  rather he has risen to the occasion with the full force of his long experience as lawyer, businessman, tax expert, corporate law expert, legislator, and politician.  that the trial so far continues to be credible to thinking filipinos is to enrile’s credit, and no one else’s.

oh yes, he was also marcos’s martial law architect and administrator and crony, and he was also behind one or two of the coup plots that sought to topple cory in the late eighties, and, yes, he was one of the politicians, along with miriam and honasan and lacson and sotto, who goaded the edsa tres crowd into storming malacanang in late april 2001.  and he’s been arrested twice, for the 1989 coup attempt and for the may 2001 rebellion.

that’s all a little hard to forget, and so i don’t even try.  instead i’m watching and listening to enrile, and enjoying the greatest performance of his life, thinking along the lines of, you’re only as good as your last show, your last book, your last movie, your last act.  which is not to say, let’s forget the past, rather, let not the past render us blind to something great that he is doing today, something no one, but no one, else has the smarts for.

my lola concha was 88, too, when she started writing her memoirs, and she was at it for some two years.  senator enrile should be good for many more years.  i hope he finishes his memoirs and that it’s a tell-all of a most colorful and significant political life, bar none.

enrile’s planets

fascinated by the man i looked up the ephemeris for the year 1924.  on feb 14 the sun was in aquarius, the moon in gemini, mercury on the cusp of capricorn-aquarius, venus in aries, mars and jupiter conjuct in sagittarius, saturn in scorpio, uranus in pisces, neptune in leo, pluto in cancer.

without a birthtime i wouldn’t hazard any kind of serious reading, but the signs aquarius and gemini, both air signs, and sagittarius, fire sign, are worth noting.  gemini gives a curious mind, and communication skills.  sagitt gives a philosophical mind, and passion for life and learning.  aquarius, the sun sign, the essential spirit, in its highest sense means a capacity to see the weaknesses of institutions and to seek new ways of doing things for a happier humanity.

better late than never.  what matters is, enrile is where he is now, and we are all the better for it.

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read armida siguion-reyna on her brother JPE So here we are
christian v. esguerra’s Trial superstars super old, sharp, amazing
and interaksyon‘s JPE at 88: At home in the heart of history

Comments

  1. manuelbuencamino

    Enrile is a good example of the saying “It’s how you finish that counts.” Compare Enrile to Joker Arroyo. Joker started out as a champion of the oppressed and is ending his career as the champion defender of Gloria Arroyo and her minions. Life is strange.

  2. up nn Grad

    The end — GuLO in jail, Corona kicked out and a few other agrarian and business details — is what the focus should be on, and JP-Enrile should just kowtow to Persi-Noynoy and a fast-tracked Daang Matuwid, that’s what a number of blogger-folks preach. PersiNoy listens to his boss the 57% who voted him into Malkanyang and those who funded his campaign; JP-Enrile should stand down, shouldn’t he?

  3. “Hindi namin kasalanan ito. Kasalanan ng bangko. Pinaghahalo-halo niyo ang peso at dollar accounts sa isang record. Takpan mo, lagyan mo ng tape,” Enrile told Garcia.

    Senate is the High Court…

    High as in high blood pressure…

  4. Annotations in the form of highlightings, underlinings, or scribblings will tell us that the original of the reproduction submitted by the prosecution was already subjected to scrutiny/investigation as to its contents.

    This may narrow the search for the originator of the pilfered information to investigating bodies such as the BSP and AMLC. The whistleblower (if ever we should consider him/her as such) may not be connected to PSB.

    If it’s true that Lacierda “authenticates” the reproduced document then it’s highly possible the Executive leaked the information out (remembering the WB memorandum on the SC loan).

    The “small lady” was just a courier (but it’s more of a ruse, considering how clandestine the operation was).

    …Again, talk about “Bourne Legacy” fever…

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