Who is Gigi Reyes?

MANILA, Philippines - Jessica “Gigi” Reyes was a new recruit at the law firm of Juan Ponce Enrile when she first attracted his attention.

As early as 1998, there has been speculation that there was more than a professional relationship between the two of them.

Even as Enrile denied this, Manila Standard columnist Joem Macaspac wrote on Feb. 1, 1998 that another columnist, Jullie Yap-Daza, broke the story about the “supposed intimate relationship” between Enrile and Reyes.

According to reports, Reyes graduated with a law degree from the University of the Philippines (UP) in 1987 and worked briefly for Enrile’s law firm after graduation.

Macaspac wrote that Reyes’ entry into Enrile’s law firm, Ponce Enrile, Cayetano, Reyes and Manalastas (PECABAR Law), “allowed her to put in a sterling performance as an associate, which prompted Enrile to ask her to handle his more demanding legal tasks.”

“Her work may have so impressed Enrile that she was transferred from the law firm to Enrile’s Senate staff to take on a more sensitive position,” Macaspac wrote in his column, in which he also discussed Enrile’s previous denial of his supposed affair with Reyes.

Some veteran reporters at the Senate said Reyes has allegedly been with Enrile’s office since the 1990s, when the Senate was still housed in the National Museum building.

Reyes is the estranged wife of fellow UP graduate, lawyer Rodolfo “Inky” Reyes, who served from 1997 to 2001 as administrator and chief executive officer of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, a freeport in Enrile’s home province.

According to Reyes’ purported profile at the professional networking site LinkedIn, she is a current partner at the Cruz & Reyes Law Offices and has been Enrile’s chief of staff since he became Senate president in November 2008.

Reyes was included in a number of photographs featured in the book, “The Honor of the Senate: 44 Days of an Impeachment Trial,” which chronicled how the Senate, under Enrile, tacked the trial of ousted chief justice Renato Corona.

Reyes has also become a fashion plate, wearing branded shoes and bags.

In recent years, she usually marked her birthday by sending lechon (roast pig) and donuts to all the offices in the Senate. She broke this tradition last year when she had a grand celebration at a hotel, attended by A-list personalities in Philippine politics led by President Aquino and Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Giving credit

Enrile, who earned his law degree in UP in 1953, showed his apparent closeness to his chief of staff by attending the homecoming of the UP College of Law of 1987, to which Reyes belongs, in November 2012.

Remarking on Reyes’ writeup in her batch’s yearbook, entitled “One Hundred Firsts,” he said she “wrote her personal first to the dancing tune of the song ‘I Will Survive.’ She said, ‘First, I was afraid, I was petrified… But after surviving Ambion and Yorac, I was certain I will survive UP Law.’ Well, all of us in this room apparently survived UP Law!”

Before Enrile went into more serious matters about the law during the homecoming, the Senate President also congratulated another prominent member of the batch, Marvic Leonen, who was then the peace negotiator and is now an associate justice of the Supreme Court.

In December last year, Enrile gave credit to Reyes during a Christmas party for reporters covering the Senate.

“Yung aking chief of staff… siya ang nagpapalakad ng aking opisina sa Senado. Medyo hindi na tayo bata, dumating na ang panahon, at lumipas na ang panahon na ako’y masigla. Humihina na yung aking pandinig. Pati ang mata ko lumalabo na pero yung utak ko gumagana pa (My chief of staff… she runs my office at the Senate. I’m no longer young and energetic. My hearing is going. My eyesight is getting poor but my brain still functions),” he said.