juan ponce enrile’s EDSA story has come in installments. three (3) so far. the first via presscons during EDSA and a lengthy interview soon after. the second via his published memoir (2012). and the third via that one-on-one with bongbong marcos on social media.
in the first installment in feb and march 1986, enrile consistently denied the RAM coup plot that marcos accused him of all through the 4 days, the one that would have installed him in the dictator’s place as head of a ruling junta. enrile denied the coup plot because he knew that it would win him no sympathy from the public, given his architect-of-martial-law image, not to speak of marcos-crony tag. instead the two bandidos slanted their statements to better call, vie for, the people’s attention. there was cheating in cagayan, said enrile; they did not consider marcos a duly constituted authority any longer, said fvr. at kiliting-kiliti naman ang mga coryista, who were already in the throes of non-violent revolution — the first day of EDSA was the 7th day of the crony boycott: banks were running, the economy was reeling. the defection was icing on the cake, na parang hulog ng langit, wow, may armed force na si cory?!? that he lied, and we believed him, is part of the EDSA story; if he had told the truth, that he sought to install himself in the place of marcos, coryistas would have left him to Ver’s tender mercies and ousted marcos without his help.
in the second installment 26 years later, enrile finally confessed to the failed coup plot, yes, he was all set to topple marcos, he really wanted to be president, kaya lang nabuking ni ver ang sabwatan, and fearing that orders for their arrest were out, he decided that, rather than run and hide, he and his men would hole up in aguinaldo, resist arrest, and die fighting — not that we didn’t know this already, thanks to historian alfred mccoy and his research team whose exposey came out in 2 veritas extras in october 1986) — but then EDSA happened, umeksena at nangibabaw ang people power, and the “courageous and patriotic” rebel military was outshone, to enrile’s great chagrin.
in the third installment, enrile shares something “new”, sort of: that at the time he and the RAMboys plotted the (aborted) coup, it was to preempt “a group of generals who had also a political plan.”
ENRILE. I’m sure your Father did not know, or your Mother, but they [the generals] had a political plan for the country.
actually it is quite likely that the father and the mother knew and were behind such plans, given facts such as this: (1) marcos started planning for the succession of imelda as early as june 1975 (the same month primitivo mijares testified in the u.s. congress on the conjugal dictatorship) when he wrote presidential decree no. 731 (never published): in case of his death or grave illness, he was to be succeeded by a commission headed by imelda [Waltzing with a Dictator 156], and (2) in august ’82, before leaving for the u.s. state visit, he had the batasan approve a law providing for a 15-member executive committee, including imelda, that would succeed him if he were to die or fall ill. [Marcos File 243]
ENRILE. … to be truthful at that point [july 1985] we were organizing because I received an information that there was a military junta, and that I was supposed to be executed by that junta if something happens to the president. I did not know that the president was sick at that time.
medyo hard to believe that he did not know marcos was sick. it was kind of common knowledge even in 1983 when ninoy decided to come home, hoping to stop another military take-over, whether by imelda-ver or enrile-RAM.
E. From my point of view, I had to do something about it at that point in our history because I was involved with the military, I was the head of the Department of Defense. I did not involve the generals of the military because they were involved, and so I had to work with young people in the military who were idealistic enough to agree to protect the interest of the country and the Filipino people without involving the people themselves. You see?
ah, yes, the young people in the military, the famous PMA’ers led by gringo honasan, I suppose? this, from ninotchka rosca: leftists, former political prisoners went to EDSA “only to be confronted by the faces of those who tortured them.” a heavy trip indeed. [Endgame 144]
BONGBONG. Why were you on the kill list of that junta?
E. Probably because I was a hindrance to their political objective.
B. So unbeknownst to many or most people, there was a plan for a military take over already?
E. Correct.
B. And the Junta was already organized?
E. Yah.
B. Can you tell us who the members of the Junta were?
E. You will be surprised. The Chief of Staff, the head of the Philippine Army, the head of the Philippine Air Force, the head of the Philippine Navy, the head of the Philippine Coast Guard. Those were the members of the junta.
not surprising at all that it was afp chief of staff fabian ver’s cabal. the head of the philippine army was josephus ramas whom ver appointed to lead the anti-EDSA ops in ’86. the head of the philippine air force was vicente piccio whose son philip was married that saturday afternoon with ver and imelda standing as ninong and ninang. the head of the philippine navy brillante ochoco was among the senior officers ver summoned to fort bonifacio for a tactical conference even while the enrile-ramos presscon was going on saturday evening. can’t find anything on the head of the Philippine Coast Guard, not even a name. twould be nice to hear from them all whether to corroborate and elaborate or to deny. let’s hear it too from imelda. what were ferdie’s instructions? who else would have been asked to join that 15-member executive committee/ruling junta?
B. How were they going to take over the reins of power?
E. According to the information I received, if your Father died, they were not supposed to announce it at all. They will keep it away from the knowledge of the public. They will invite all the members of the cabinet in the name of your Father for a cabinet meeting. And once we are in the Palace we will be quarantined, but in my case I will have to be executed.
B. This is something that, again I don’t think… Maybe this is the first time that this information has seen the light of day.
E. Well.
B. So the uprising of what became EDSA was not a break with my Father, it was an opposition to this Junta.
E. Correct.
hmm. in the time of EDSA, maysakit si marcos pero alive and kicking pa, so to speak. lumalabas pa sa TV, in-control pa rin daw, palaban pa rin. ibig sabihin, imelda’s junta of generals was not yet operative, a non-entity to the end.
to my mind, enrile’s uprising that “became EDSA” was both a break with marcos whom he wanted to replace AND an attempt to preempt cory or, at the very least, to negotiate an end to the boycott (kahit hindi naman daw siya crony, wala siyang lll-gotten wealth, say niya sa memoir). and to a certain extent he was successful. he managed to get on the good side of cory, thanks to the people, and he helped freak the marcoses out of the palace, and that was the end of the boycott, mission accomplished.
B. EDSA … this popular uprising has become already a part of the political narrative or the political methods of unseating a government or bringing a government down. In your view is that a good development? Should it be part of the narrative? Should we choose our leaders this way?
E. We cannot avoid prevent people from marching in the streets to peaceably assemble for redress of grievances, that’s constitutional. But in the case of the first EDSA, the question is, why EDSA? Who decided that the event must be in EDSA? Cory did not decide that, none of the Liberal Party people decided that. They were all gone, they were In Cebu. … It was there because we went to Camp Aguinaldo and that is where the confrontation took place.
this is enrile still laying a claim on EDSA. the way he sees it, kung hindi sila nag-defect, walang EDSA. totoo naman, to some extent. kung hindi sila nag-defect, nag-people power pa rin tiyak, hindi nga lang sa EDSA, so we’d be calling it something else.
on that 7th day of the boycott, cory was in cebu rallying the people to join her civil disobedience campaign and adding to the list of crony products and services to boycott. next stop davao. the clamor for marcos’s resignation would have spread nationwide by the 10th day, and marcos’s inauguration would have brought out the people marching to mendiola, most likely, if not into the palace mismo, there to face tanks and the Marines as bravely, to stop the oathtaking.
if anything, the military defectors owed their lives and status, post-EDSA, to the people who not only saved their lives but also prevailed upon cory to avail of their armed services.
B. Tito, All this time since 1986 I have been wanting to ask you a question and I have never found the opportunity to do it, and I think this is a good time. After all that happened in EDSA, after all this uprising etc. … bakit hindi kayo ang nag-Presidente? You knew the characters that were involved and you were much more qualified than any of them.
E. You know, your Dad was giving me the government in the morning of Tuesday February 25.
B. I remember, Tito, I was there when he made the phone call to you.
E. Corrrect. He was asking me to ask Cory to postpone her oathtaking. I told him I will try.
uy. bago yang “I told him I will try.” in earlier accounts it was more like, it’s too late, ang say niya kay marcos. day 4 na iyon noong tawagan siya ni makoy; papunta na siya sa inagurasyon ni cory sa club filipino.
E. You know, Bongbong, I did not intend to take over power, in the first place. But while I was inside Camp Aguinaldo, and Camp Crame, I was thinking about what will happen. I said if the military will take over, I will involve the country into a possible civil war. Because the election was just finished. There was a big block of votes that voted for Cory, there was a big block of votes that voted for your Father, and I was not exposed to the electoral process at that point. I’m sure that if I did, if the military took over and I assumed power, I will have enemies inside my military organization also, then I will… There is a possibility that the two forces that fought in that election will combine. … And then you have the bulk of the military at that point who did not know where to where they will situate themselves. All of that I thought about it.
that is enrile being noble-kuno about giving way to cory to avoid bloodshed. in fact, he had no choice, the people gave him no choice. he didn’t even get a chance – there was simply no opening – to offer himself to the coryistas as the one better equipped to replace marcos. and if he had dared, cory’s people would have withdrawn their support, i think, and watched him and ver wipe each other out.
E. By the way Monday night I called for Jimmy Ongpin to come to Camp Crame and I said, with this event that is happening now, will be a protracted event, let us organize a provisional government to handle the running of our revolutionary government. I proposed five cabinet positions. Defense, Finance, Local Govt, Justice and Foreign Affairs. Sa inyo yung apat kako na posisyon, sa amin yung Defense. Because I wanted to balance their political forces against the military forces. Alam mo ang ginawa nila, that night? That is where I started to suspect them. They filled all the positions in the Cabinet, they organized their own Cabinet.
B. But you had an agreement previous to that.
E. Yah, I had an agreement with Jimmy Ongpin. Eh kako hindi pala totoo na tao itong kausap ko.
this is enrile most unclear. what kind of revolutionary government was he thinking of? on day 2 he is said to have proposed to doy laurel a military-civilian junta that would include cory and doy and other civilians. cory, of course, would not hear of it. a junta arrangement was always more military than civilian. why should cory allow herself to be sidelined when she had won the votes of 10 million pinoys, and enrile had not.
B. It’s always been a mystery to me, because you were positioned perfectly to take over the reins of power and we were all a little surprised, watching this again from far away, and we were saying for sure I’m sure si Minister Enrile…
E. I was afraid not for myself but for the country, that it will cause a bloodbath.
B. I think you were similar in thinking to my Father because one of the reasons, and I asked him this directly: Why were you so hesitant to use force in 1986? Nung talagang papasukin na yung palasyo, binobomba na tayo, binabaril na tayo, ganon, marami naman kaming tropa, we were very well prepared, because as I said we received the information about imminent attack to on the Palace one week before you and General Ramos went to Crame and made your stand in Crame, so we had the chance to prepare. So we were wondering why did we not fight back with force. And he said, that would have been the beginning of a civil war. Which I think is exactly the way you saw it.
E. … GOD was with us because that event turned out to be bloodless because your father restrained himself.
no no no. EDSA turned out to be bloodless not because marcos restrained himself but because certain officers defied, refused to follow, orders that would have harmed innocent civilians. read untrue story, unsung heroes, of EDSA.
towards the end, enrile alleges that history was “totally distorted to favor one group.” i submit that that’s exactly what enrile and bongbong are doing, totally distorting history to favor the memory of marcos. i look forward to bongbong’s next, hopefully a tete-a-tete with imelda herself. that would be one for the books.