[OPINION] The paradox of Juan Ponce Enrile

The irony couldn’t be sharper: the person who orchestrated detentions with out warrant and censored dissent would later be protected by the identical constitutional ensures he trampled upon

Juan Ponce Enrile has lengthy been a paradox in Philippine authorized and political historical past. He’s each architect and beneficiary of Martial Regulation — its chief implementer and later its survivor. His identify evokes worry and crafty, brilliance and betrayal. But what’s most hanging about Enrile’s lengthy presence in Philippine jurisprudence is how usually he seems as a litigant invoking the Invoice of Rights — the very constitution of freedoms he as soon as helped suppress. 

The irony couldn’t be sharper: the person who orchestrated detentions with out warrant and censored dissent would later be protected by the identical constitutional ensures he trampled upon.

Enrile throughout Martial Regulation

In Aquino v. Enrile, determined in 1974, the Supreme Court docket upheld the legality of Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. ‘s detention beneath martial regulation, ruling that President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ proclamation validly vested the manager with extraordinary powers to arrest and detain people with out judicial warrant. 

The Court docket deferred to the President’s dedication {that a} state of rise up existed, successfully suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. It declared that the need or knowledge of Martial Regulation was a political query past judicial evaluation. 

The choice marked the judiciary’s full acquiescence to authoritarian rule and uncovered its failure to defend constitutional rights after they have been most endangered.

A decade later, Ilagan v. Enrile examined the boundaries of human rights as soon as once more. The petitioners, all legal professionals from Davao Metropolis, challenged their arrest and detention with out warrants. The Marcos authorities invoked the regime’s emergency powers and justified the arrests as a part of the marketing campaign in opposition to subversion. 

The SC dismissed the case as moot after the petitioners’ launch, avoiding the broader constitutional concern. The evasion mirrored the judiciary’s timidity through the Marcos years: unwilling to confront abuses, it allowed legality to grow to be a masks for repression.

It was solely after the autumn of Marcos that the courts started to confront the misuse of regulation as a weapon in opposition to dissent. 

In Brocka v. Enrile, determined in 1990, petitioners Lino Brocka and Behn Cervantes, each artists, have been arrested for collaborating in a labor rally and charged with inciting to sedition. The SC dominated that such prosecutions violated the ensures of due course of. It held that prison regulation couldn’t be twisted to punish political expression, and that arrests should relaxation on lawful investigations and credible proof, not political comfort. 

The Brocka resolution signaled that the devices of repression cast beneath Martial Regulation might not function in a constitutional democracy.

Enrile invokes the Invoice of Rights

However historical past’s irony deepened when Enrile himself stood earlier than the Court docket invoking the very freedoms he as soon as suppressed. In Enrile v. Salazar, determined after the 1989 coup try in opposition to the Cory Aquino authorities, he sought launch on bail after being charged with rise up for his alleged function within the failed 1989 coup try. The SC granted his petition, holding that widespread crimes like homicide have been absorbed by rise up, a bailable crime.

The paradox reached its most controversial level in Enrile v. Sandiganbayan, determined in 2015, when the then 91-year-old senator sought bail on humanitarian grounds in his plunder case. The Court docket, by a divided vote, granted his launch, citing his age and fragile well being as distinctive circumstances. 

Enrile’s launch drew widespread criticism for embodying a double commonplace. For a lot of victims of Martial Regulation and for the poor who languish in overcrowded jails with out trial, the message was bitterly clear: mercy favors the highly effective.

Throughout these instances runs a single thread: the regulation’s uneasy relationship with energy. Enrile’s identify surfaces within the experiences of the Supreme Court docket as each oppressor and petitioner, violator and sufferer. His authorized odyssey mirrors the broader stress between dictatorship and democracy, between the reminiscence of abuse and the promise of equity.

Enrile as sui generis

Enrile’s lengthy survival throughout the authorized system he as soon as bent to his will underscores each the resilience and the weak spot of Philippine justice. He has lived lengthy sufficient to see the Structure he helped destroy rise once more to defend him. Every time his identify reappears within the Court docket’s selections, it reopens a wound within the nation’s conscience: a reminder that the regulation’s impartiality can appear to be injustice to those that suffered with out treatment. 

But in that very impartiality lies the delicate energy of the Republic, that it chooses due course of over vengeance, precept over ardour. Maybe that is the ultimate irony of Juan Ponce Enrile’s story: that the architect of repression has endured lengthy as a result of democracy refuses to grow to be his mirror. 

Juan Ponce Enrile was sui generis, a singular particular person, a paradox – not simply in regulation, however in politics and governance. 

He was the Martial Regulation administrator of Marcos Sr., led the overthrow of the latter, and ended his profession because the presidential authorized counsel of Marcos Jr. 

Enrile managed the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona, for corruption, resulting in the conviction and elimination of the latter. However he himself was charged with corruption within the Napoles PDAF scandal, solely to be acquitted days earlier than his passing.

The Philippines won’t ever see anybody once more like Enrile once more. Thanks be to God for that. – Rappler.com

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