Jackie Enrile: ‘Never trust anybody, not even your own father’

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. — Emperor Marcus Aurelius

Who really is Juan “Jack” Ponce Enrile, Jr. the only son and namesake of the controversial Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, now seeking to take his place in the Philippine Senate after four terms as Cagayan congressman? What are his views on his father’s bestselling 753-page memoir, now already in its sixth printing?

Graduating as an English major from Christian Heritage College and with an MBA from Pepperdine University both in California, Jack worked for and later from 1994 to 1998 led his family’s JAKA Group of Companies as chief executive officer. He has been in politics since 1998 and is now a senatorial candidate of UNA.

Enrile recently granted Philippine STAR an exclusive no-holds-barred two-hour interview at his Makati home. Excerpts:

PHILIPPINE STAR: Is it true what I’ve heard that, apart from riding motorcycles in your teens, you’re a class A shooter?

JACK PONCE ENRILE: (Laughs) Before, maybe when I was young. You know, shooting is a perishable skill, especially if you no longer practice. I started shooting when I was 12, that was after my career in motorcycle (riding) was cut short by a bad accident.

President Noynoy Aquino is almost your age. Did you meet each other in shooting circles?

Noynoy went into shooting later.

Is it true I heard from one of your friends that you’re better than Noynoy at shooting?

(Laughs) No, si Noynoy mas magaling sa shooting (Noynoy is better at shooting). I think he has kept up his proficiency with continuous practice.

Your father’s nemesis Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, she’s good at shooting?

I don’t know now, I think she was a good shooter in her younger days.

Can you outshoot Senator Miriam? How do you both compare?

We’re different. I think Miriam did shooting mainly for self-defense, but for me it’s a sport.

I heard Miriam and your dad used to be quite close? Your views on their conflict?

Yes, she’s a goddaughter of my father. In fact, when she renewed her vows with Manong Jun during their 25th wedding anniversary in the 1990s, I represented my father as ninong… They are both very competent, very intelligent, both are political institutions. It’s unfortunate they can be disagreeable, but I believe this problem will eventually die down and they will learn to love each other again.

Why are you running for the Senate? You’ve already got everything. What motivates you?

For me, admittedly, the first 40 years of my life were devoted mostly to myself and my family, but God has blessed us and I believe I’m in a position to help others. I would like to dedicate the rest of my life to serve the public, whether in the private sector or in politics. I’ve (made) my mistakes, and I have no regrets in my life. I want to be instrumental, in some shape or fashion, in national development. I want to champion agriculture, food security and other advocacies. Win or lose in this Senate election, I don’t want to die thinking I didn’t try to make a positive difference.

Why say “win or lose”?

There’s nothing sure in politics.

Did you learn that from your father?

Yes, he has run six times for the Senate. He has won four times and lost twice in 1971 and in 2001.

Was that the election after the opposition rally at Plaza Miranda was bombed by Communist rebels but blamed on Marcos?

Yes, my father was then with the Nacionalista Party. Manong Ernie Maceda was the only Nacionalista who won as senator in the 1971 election after the bombing.

How are you exactly related to the ilustrado revolutionary Mariano Ponce, who was friend to both Dr. Jose Rizal and China’s revolutionary hero Dr. Sun Yat Sen?

Mariano Ponce was my great-granduncle. He was the brother of my great-grandfather Damaso Ponce, who was like a sidekick to Mariano the treasurer of the Katipunan revolutionary secret society.

From whom did you learn all these tales of your forebears?

I learned about our family’s history from my uncles Chito and Toti.

Are these the half-brothers of your father, because he was born out of wedlock in the barrio?

Yes, they’re my father’s half-brothers. You know, when I was young, I was often wondering why my father was a little mestizo in his features but his brothers Chito and Toti were very mestizo. On the other hand, I also wondered why our father also had two other brothers, Dado and Eloy — actually half-brothers from his mother’s side — who looked very different, with very Malay features. I was only wondering. I only came to learn my father’s colorful life story when I was already a teenager.

Do you agree your father’s colorful life would make a good movie?

They’re actually making a telenovela on ABS-CBN 2. My father told me just this Monday.

When did you later first meet your real grandmother Petra Furugganan?

I grew up knowing all my uncles and aunts, and the grandmother I was introduced to by my father since I was a child was Lola Purita Liwanag Ponce Enrile, a beautiful Bulakeña. I think I was only in my early 20s when I first met my real grandmother.

When was this and how did it happen?

I remember during a vacation from the States, my father had me tag along with him to Cagayan province for his speaking engagement in Tuguegarao City. I just decided to hire a car because I wanted to go to Aparri to visit my grandmother. I didn’t know it would take me one and a half hours to drive there.

Everyone in Aparri knew where the house of the mother of Juan Ponce Enrile was. When I knocked on the door and it opened, I saw this old lady with tears flowing down her face.

Was your dad close to his mother?

My father was very close to her mom, but he tried to keep his past a secret, because he wanted to protect us, his children. My uncle Dado, he was born in 1916, my lola (grandma) was born in 1901, so she was already a mother at 15… Regardless of what, she was my lola whom we loved.

I met her in 1980 when she was close to 80 years old. Although we never grew up in Cagayan, I take pride in my roots there and I admire the hardworking and God-fearing Cagayan people.

Is it hard to be the son of a very famous person?

It is very hard to be the son of a famous father. In my case, you have to try three times as hard to be considered half as good as one’s father. But this comes with the territory, that’s my tough luck, no complaints.

I read some sons of famous fathers seem to become exact opposites or just fade away like the sons of President Quezon and General Douglas MacArthur. The only son of MacArthur even had to change his surname.

I am lucky, our parents allowed us to seek our own lives. I made mistakes — as any man should — but I learned from my mistakes. Our parents didn’t micro-manage our lives.

Are you really the only son of your father?

(Laughs) Sa alam ko (As far as I know). So far, nobody has come forward claiming to be his son…

Your grandfather Alfonso Ponce Enrile sired many kids from different women?

My late grandfather, he was handsome and had led a very cavalier life.

How many children in total did your grandfather have?

The last count, Lolo (Grandpa) had 17 kids… certainly over a dozen.

Is it true you were bullied as a kid at the Ateneo? Do you remember them?

Yes, I was 10 years old in grade four. I remember them, but I don’t want to name them. They were older, in grade seven. It was 1974, it was uso (the fad) then to shout “tuta ni Marcos (lackeys of Marcos)!”

I remember I was on my way home and exactly where at the Ateneo, at a blind corner, that the three of them came out and pushed me around. They were badgering me. I was scared and pushed back, they then pushed me, I fell and they kicked me on the floor. One of them kicked me on the mouth and I split my lower lip, so I have a faint scar here up to now (points to her lower lip).

Were your parents angry or shocked?

I just told my parents I was kicked in football. I had blood on my shirt. My father only knew the real story last year during father’s day in Cebu, when I recounted it during an interview. He was surprised and said: “My God.”

It underscores the fact that whether in politics or in any profession, there’s often a price you pay, but it comes with the territory. 

Were you a spoiled brat as the only son of the country’s most powerful man during martial law?

My father is Ilocano, he was so frugal and didn’t spoil his children. We had a comfortable life, but our parents were not ostentatious.

What was your father’s advice to you when you entered politics?

He said: “Let them see who Jack Enrile is. Just be who you are. Be humble.”

No advice about the treacheries or dangers in politics?

He said to me before: “Never trust anybody, not even your own father.”

Your father really advised you that? When?

He told me that when I was 15 or 16 years old. He said that because he lived his life and fought many battles. He went through hardships. He learned about life not from reading novels or books. He wanted that for us, too, somehow, he told us: “Make your own mistakes when I’m still alive, so I can help you.”

What was the worst thing people have said against you?

That I’m a killer.

So you have never, ever killed a person?

I never fired a shot in anger, never in my entire life. I always shoot at a paper target, or a metal plate, or when I used to hunt deer and wild boar here or in the States. I’ve hunted before in Ternate, Cavite when there was still wildlife there, also in Laguna, in Nasugbu,  Batangas and in Maragondon in Cavite.

Is it true that you, an Atenean, and the only son of President Marcos, Bongbong of La Salle, were rivals?

Of course not. In truth, I’ve always considered Bongbong Marcos a gentleman. In fact, I can count with my 10 fingers the times we’ve met each other in our entire lives.

What about the e-mail I got that claims both your groups of bodyguards have, on at least four occasions, shot each other?

That’s hogwash. The Internet is replete with sensational and untrue stories.

Your father in his book denied claims implicating you in the death of actor Alfie Anido on Dec. 30, 1981. He said that on Alfie’s birthday he got drunk in a rented house in Antipolo with other friends and had a quarrel with your sister Katrina, and that on the way back to Makati he even physically hit her. Your father never wrote about your going to the Anido house. Why were you there in the Anido house on that day in Bel-Air, Makati?

The reason we went there to the house, we heard on the radio… It was around dinnertime. I was eating at the Miyako eat-all-you-can restaurant across from the Dusit Hotel along Pasay Road. I was eating with our security officer, Greg Honasan, I think he was already a colonel or major then.

From the radio, I heard my sister Katrina was in Antipolo with Alfie, that they were on the way back home. When Katrina reached Bel-Air, we proceeded to eat. Suddenly, there were squelches on the radio, then there was a discussion, then Greg looked a little concerned and he wanted to go. I said to him: Sama ako (I want to go with you).”

So you went to the house of the actor?

When I and Greg Honasan arrived at the house, the door was open and there was a light on. When I was close to the door, I started to hear my sister Katrina crying. I went to go to the second floor, then I went into the room. I recoiled when I saw a gun on the floor, then I saw Alfie Anido on the bed reclining. Namamaga na siya (He was already swollen).

Alfie Anido and your sister had a fight before his death?

I think Katrina at that point wanted to break it off with him. They had a lovers’ quarrel.

I researched that the actor was only a year younger than you and also went to Ateneo. Did you personally know him?

Yeah, we were close. He was younger than me at Ateneo. He was always a good-looking kid, very affable, very nice. We always used to talk in the Ateneo’s pergola — the open-air canteen. The false rumor on my alleged role in his death is again one of the pitfalls of life in politics.

Another part of your father’s book that is most controversial and even contradicted by the book’s publisher Oscar Lopez was the ambush on your father’s car in Wack Wack subdivision in Mandaluyong, which President Marcos used to justify declaring martial law in 1972. Critics say your father faked his ambush. Do you remember that day? 

I was 14 years old then, in first year high school. I was coming home from Ateneo. I came home to our house then in Sto. Domingo Street, Urdaneta Village, Makati. That was about 4 p.m. I was going to ride my motorcycle at Fort Bonifacio, but they didn’t allow me. My mother just hugged me. I remember my father was very stoic. They didn’t want us to know. My father just said: “Something happened.” I later learned from the news about the ambush.

Did all this talk about ambush and martial law, etc., make you worry or fear?

Due to our always having bodyguards and always seeing guns, we grew up with the idea that life is precarious. Once as a kid, I was leaving our house at 5:30 a.m. in order to beat the traffic on the then still two-lane Edsa. I was only 10 or 11 years old, and I saw four coffins outside our house that morning. My father was then Customs Commissioner. I remember at first thinking that it’s not yet Halloween.

You didn’t study law like your dad and grandfather?

I wanted to be a businessman. My idol then was Tito Danding Cojuangco. Admittedly I didn’t take my academic studies seriously like my father did, but I wanted to go into business where you really need gumption and audacity more. My father before always worried I didn’t have a fallback position.

You studied English in college, who are your favorite literary writers?

I took up an honors in English. My favorite writers that I read were Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), James Joyce, especially his novel Ulysses, Joseph Conrad. I admire the British poets John Milton, John Bunyan of Pilgrim’s Progress, I also like the poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

You’ve read all that?

I chronicled it. In four semesters and a summer, I read 11,000 pages of literature, not that I retained much of it though. (Laughs)

Was it true your father and Imelda were rivals to be potential successors to Marcos?

Maybe. According to my father it was a deep rivalry. I think the First Lady at one point harbored thoughts of becoming president, and she had a circle of friends egging her on.

Was it true you had once disagreed with your father on your huge real estate projects before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and that you once lost your JAKA property along Ayala Avenue to the bank?

I remember in 1996 real estate was at its peak. On our JAKA building project in Ayala Avenue, there was a real estate bubble based on projections, because the yields were not there of supposedly P1,000 per square meter in rental, with too many realty projects being developed. I had a private conversation with my father, a big real estate businessman wanted to buy the Elizalde Building for P600,000 per square meter.

That’s the site of the JAKA project, formerly called Elizalde Building? How did you buy that?

It was Mar Roxas who brokered the sale of the eight-story Elizalde Building to my father in the early 1990s or late 1980s. If my memory serves me right, my father bought it for P78 million or P74 million. It is 1,200 square meters in lot area.

Why did you disagree with your father and want to sell it?

I told my father that if we sold it, we did not have to borrow. I told him we could not afford to simultaneously develop two big realty projects, this building in Ayala Avenue and Splendido in Tagaytay, and I think Splendido would give us better returns, but he disagreed with me and his decision was followed.

You lost the Ayala Avenue property in the Asian crisis. To whom?

We did a dacion en pago, or used the property to pay off our loans, I think it was with RCBC in 1998 or 1999. In 2006, we paid off our obligations and bought it back.

So in that real estate project, you were proven right in your judgment? Did your father tell you that you were correct all along?

He probably wouldn’t openly admit that.

President Noynoy is almost your age. Did you meet at the Ateneo?

We were acquaintances, but on different sides in politics. In fairness to the President, he didn’t show me, or did nothing against me, I can only speak for myself… I remember Noynoy in Ateneo as quiet and friendly, always bookish.

People think he’s smart but not the bookish or studious type?

Noynoy was always reading in the corridors or classrooms. He’s very intelligent, but he’s not mayabang (boastful) about his brains.

Mar Roxas is almost your age group. Did you meet him at Ateneo High School, too?

Mar was a couple of years ahead of me. I know him, in fact, he’s the ninong (godfather) of my only son in the year 2000.

So the leader of the Liberal Party, the rival of your UNA party, is your good friend?

Yes, I consider Mar as a good friend. He is a very busy man now.

What about Vice President Jojo Binay? Are you close to him, too?

I am close to his daughter Nancy Binay, I was just with her a couple of days ago in Cagayan. I knew the Vice President when he was still a young lawyer in 1974. I was then 16 when I was courting a friend of my sister Katrina in San Antonio Village in Makati, and I used to see then Atty. Binay walking with a briefcase. I think he then became the youngest Cabinet official of Cory Aquino, he was in his 30s.

Your father seems to be close to Binay?

Though my father and Binay before were in different sides of the political fence, now they’re very close. They speak the Ibanag dialect. The Vice President’s middle name is Cabauatan, her mother’s Ibanag. They both speak fluent Ibanag. I think the Vice President speaks even more fluent Ibanag than my father. You will not see a more down-to-earth politician than Vice President Binay, he calls everyone “Pare.”

I heard people say Mar Roxas lacks the down-to-earth style of Binay. Is this true?

Not with me, baka mahiyain lang si Mar (maybe Mar is just shy or too modest).

Critics complain of your father’s politics and the purportedly slanted version of history in his memoirs?

You might not necessarily agree with his positions, but he believes in them, so he could sleep soundly at night.

Your father has been accused of plotting military coups versus then President Cory Aquino. Are these rumors true?

You have to ask him that. There has been no proof to substantiate those accusations. There have been rumors… Whether true or not, whatever my father did, he had his reasons for doing so.

Some critics say your dad has outlived many protagonists of modern history, so he has distorted certain facts and allegedly created fiction?

I guess he brings his own perspective, that’s why it’s his memoirs.

Your greatest fears?

I have an extreme fear of heights, and I fear going to hell.

Are you religious?

I believe in the God of the Bible. I was raised a Catholic, but I’ve had a personal relationship with the Lord in 1994, and I discovered that the Lord loves me, that I’m forgiven and that by grace I am saved.

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