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Secretary of National Defense

Minister of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile with President Ferdinand Marcos.

Juan Ponce Enrile, like Marcos, comes from the northern Philippines, a region that had become Marcos’ recruiting ground for key political and military leaders during his time. Enrile was with Marcos since his election in 1965. His campaign efforts were rewarded with an appointment as chief of the Customs Bureau and the government’s insurance commission.

The Department of National Defense would expand its power when President Ferdinand E. Marcos assumed the presidency in 1965. Marcos appointed Juan Ponce Enrile as his Secretary of Defense on February 9, 1970, a position Enrile held until August 27, 1971, when he resigned to run unsuccessfully for the senate. He was re-appointed Defense Chief by Marcos on January 4, 1972. As part of the Department of National Defense, he was “tasked with guarding the Republic of the Philippines “against external and internal threats to national peace and security, and to provide support for social and economic development.” As Defense Chief, he was the highest ranked commissioned officer of a nation’s armed forces.

From the beginning of Marcos’ period in government, Enrile was one of the few that the former president trusted, and was seen by many as Marcos’ protégé. For almost the entire period of martial law, Juan Ponce Enrile served officially as Martial Law administrator in charge of all the armed forces’ services during that time. Furthermore, as early as Marcos’ planning and preparation for the declaration of martial law, Enrile was very much involved.

In his memoir, Enrile recalls Marcos’ careful preparations. He narrates that as early as December 1969, Marcos instructed him to study the 1935 Constitution, specifically the powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief. Marcos had already foreseen a rise in violence and chaos in the country and wanted to know the exact extent of his powers. Enrile also says that “the study” must be done “discreetly and confidentially.”

At the end of January of the following year, Enrile, with help from Efren Plana and Minerva Gonzaga Reyes, submitted the only copy of the report regarding the detailed nature and extent of Martial Law to Marcos. Soon after, Marcos allegedly ordered Enrile to prepare all documents necessary for the implementation of Martial Law in the Philippines.

In August, 1972, Marcos once again met with Enrile and a few of his other most trusted commanders to discuss tentative dates for the declaration. By September 22, 1972, Marcos announced that he had placed the entire country under Martial Law as of 9 p.m. via proclamation 1081 which, he claimed, he had signed on September 21, 1972.

One of Marcos’ justifications for the declaration of martial law that year was terrorism. He cited the alleged ambush attack on Enrile’s car on September 22, 1972 as pretext for martial law. At the time, many people doubted that the attack actually took place. Marcos, in his diary entry for September, 1972, wrote that secretary Juan Ponce Enrile had been ambushed near Wack-Wack that night. He says “it was a good thing he was riding in his security car as a protective measure… This makes the martial law proclamation a necessity.”

On the contrary, Oscar Lopez, a resident of Wack-Wack who lived along the street of the alleged ambush, stated that he had heard a lot of shooting on the night of the incident. When he went out to see what was happening, he saw only an empty car riddled with bullets. Lopez’ driver, who had happened to witness the incident, stated that “there was a car that came and stopped beside a Meralco post. Some people exited the car, and another car came by to shoot at the car, to make it look like it was ambushed.”

The doubts surrounding the alleged ambush were further confirmed in a historic press conference on February 23, 1986 when then Lieutenant General Fidel Ramos and Juan Ponce Enrile admitted that the attack was staged in order to justify the declaration of martial law. Both radio and television media covered this and millions of Filipinos witnessed the said confession. Furthermore, in several interviews, Enrile was reported as indeed confirming that the attempted assassination was faked in order to justify the declaration of Martial Law.

However, conflicting accounts arise in his recently launched book, “Juan Ponce Enrile: A Memoir”. In the said book, Enrile accuses his political opponents of spreading rumors of the ambush being staged despite having already admitted several times that the attempted assassination was indeed fake.

Despite present-day controversy, at the time, Enrile remained one of Marcos’ most loyal allies. In 1973, under the new modified parliamentary system then in place under the country's new constitution under Martial Law, Enrile's title became Defense Minister. During this time, Defense was the most powerful ministry in the Executive Branch. President Marcos as dictator was given powers to “govern the nation and direct the operation of the entire government including all its agencies and instrumentalities.” The proclamation of Martial Law gave Enrile, as well as the armed forces which he managed, the authority to “prevent or suppress [...] any act of insurrection or rebellion.” This high position truly made him one of the prime architects of Marcos' martial rule.

Defense Minister Enrile focused his efforts on a broad review of defense policies and on dealing with pressing social unrest. The abolition of civilian institutions such as Congress, the weakening of the judiciary, and the outlawing of political parties, left the military as the only other instrumentality of the national government outside of the Presidency. It was also during this time that the ministry was plagued by a culture of excess and a propensity to commit human rights violations.

However, there were several events that sparked Marcos’ distrust in Enrile that led to their falling apart. One such event was in 1978. On a trip to Samar, Enrile visited the town of San Jose and met with the local media and with the civic religious and political leaders of Mindoro Occidental. One of the problems brought to his attention was the case of an unfinished highway between the town of Puerto Galera and San Jose. The media as well as the local leaders of Mindoro Occidental claimed that the contractor had fully collected the construction cost even though the highway had not yet been completed. The story was reported nationally when it was found that the contractor was apparently the husband of a niece of Mrs. Imelda Marcos. The news story did not sit well with Marcos, and Marcos saw it as a deliberate effort to embarrass his family. Enrile was blamed for having reported the incident. When Enrile returned to Manila after his trip, Marcos sent him a handwritten note saying “let us avoid making poisonous statements”, referring to the news story about the highway.

Once Enrile arrived in Eastern Samar, he was told that there had been a gun battle between the soldiers of the navy construction battalion and the Philippine constabulary. The leaders and the media expressed that they were afraid of the soldiers in their town and they asked Enrile to do something about it. To allay the fear of the people in Dolores, he ordered the removal of the entire navy construction battalion from the town. Back in Manila, President Marcos asked Enrile to see him in the Malacañang and told him that he had no authority to remove the navy construction battalion from Eastern Samar.

Not long after these events, on November 28, 1978, Marcos issued the Letter of Instruction no. 776, which stated that “No changes of assignment of senior officers including provincial commanders, brigade commanders, division commanders, and special unit commanders shall be made without clearance from the president.” This was evidently aimed at Enrile.

By the 1980s, Marcos began to bypass Enrile’s authority. He clipped the powers of the Minister of National Defense and the Chief of Staff over the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Marcos changed the chain of command and under which, the authority would evolve from him as the president and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces to his trusted military officer, General Fabian Ver, then the chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Ver used his position to retain various generals who had surpassed retirement age in order to keep such generals loyal to the Marcos administration. The prominence of Ver’s abuse of power within the military ranks led to the formation of groups and factions among the lower levels of the military command. The sudden change in leadership eventually sparked the Reform the Armed Forces Movement led by Lt. Col. Gregorio Honasan.

After opposition leader Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr. was assassinated on August 21, 1983, Enrile started to break away from the increasingly unpopular Marcos dictatorship. He began aligning himself with dissident elements in the army, particularly the Reform the Armed Forces Movement - which was then headed by his Aide-de-camp, Lt. Col. Gregorio Honasan. Revolutions and protests grew against President Marcos. On February 15, 1986, Aquino’s wife, Cory Aquino gained mass support through her oath taking in protest of Marcos being announced president. This then led to many leaders joining the revolution and fight against Marcos. Officers from this group, with Enrile's support, launched a coup d'état against Marcos in February 1986. Marcos was alerted to the plot by then General Ver, and the conspirators took refuge in two military camps. From there, Ponce Enrile and then Lt. General Fidel Ramos, the head of the defunct Philippine Constabulary (was integrated with the INP to form the Philippine National Police) and concurrently vice-chief of staff of the armed forces, rallied opponents against Marcos in a citizens' revolt that became known as the People Power Revolution. They called on the people to gather in Epifonio de los Santos Avenida EDSA to support on February 22. The next three days, they continued their rally in EDSA now containing two million people in support. Due to this growing number, many more leaders were then encouraged to support the movement against President Marcos. As Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile stated, "It was funny… We in the defense and military organizations who should be protecting the people were being protected by them." This led Marcos to order the officers hold shooting the masses and this slowly led to the growing power towards democracy. Enrile also revealed details of the public deception he had perpetuated while serving in the Marcos government. This included being aware of fraudulent voting in the 1986 presidential election and faking an assassination attempt on his own life in 1972, which helped provide Marcos with the justification for declaring martial law.

Enrile then served as the Secretary of National Defense under Corazon Aquino, who had replaced Marcos as president, but he increasingly differed with Aquino, specifically on the administration's handling of insurgent leftist opposition. Aquino sought to make peace with the communist party of the Philippines through the use and promotions of ceasefires during which peace talks were to be held between the government and the leftist opposition. Because of such tactics, Enrile was not the only person dissatisfied with Aquino administration. Many of the younger officers in the military who had been identified as members of Reformed Armed Forces Movement and and Marcos Loyalists sought to oust Aquino from the presidency with the many coups that were plotted from 1986 - 1990. The earliest and most prominent one being the "God Save the Queen" plot that was to supposedly be executed on the November 11, 1986. . The investigation of the coup done by the Fact Finding Commission found that Enrile and some members of the RAM as the primary instigators of the coup. After revealing the fruits of the investigation findings, Aquino forced Enrile to resign as Defense Secretary in November 1986 as she had lost confidence in him. Enrile was then replaced with Rafael Ileto.