What legacy will Sen. Pres. Enrile leave?

In our special presentation on our talkshow on Straight from the Sky tonight, we bring you Bohol’s first 5-star resort, the Bellevue Resort in Panglao, which is now open for business after its “soft-opening” last month. You can say that the entry of Bellevue Resort raises the bar of luxury in Bohol. With us tonight is Mr. Patrick Chan, Managing Director and Franz Eichenauer, General Manager of Bellevue Resort in Panglao, who will show us their new resort. So watch this very interesting show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm tonight with replays on Wednesday and Saturday, and replays in MyTV Chan.28.

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I’ve been observing the Social Weather Station (SWS) which every now and then comes up with surveys which are timed perfectly when Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III is having some kind of trouble, like when the Senate row with Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Antonio Trillanes III hit the headlines in the national newspapers, on the same day SWS and Pulse Asia came up with surveys that showed the President’s popularity at an all-time height of 78 percent, which sounds unbelievable.

Well, last Saturday, SWS was at it again, which it came up with a report that 21 percent of 4.3 million Filipino households have gone hungry. SWS says “People are experiencing hunger are people how have nothing to eat only once or a few times.” Now tell me, who can refute their surveys? No one because as we’ve pointed out many times, SWS doesn’t tell us how they collate the information that ended with the results that they release to the press.

So now, SWS has put itself in a corner because their latest survey doesn’t connect with the survey they released a week ago… when they said, “Fewer families consider themselves poor or “food-poor.” That survey reveals that an estimated 9.5 million families say that they are “poor.” Honestly, I don’t want to explain why this is so. It is up to SWS to clarify things.

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Everyone is still talking about the big bash last Thursday evening, Sept. 27, at the Manila Peninsula hosted by ABS-CBN’s Oscar Lopez for the formal book launching of his 754-page memoir entitled “Juan Ponce Enrile: A Memoir” written by my good friend, Nelson Navarro, who did the memoirs of my mentor, the late Sir Maximo V. Soliven, and that of Vice-President Emmanuel Pelaez and many more. This was viewed live on ANC.

If you looked at the personalities that were inside the Manila Peninsula Ballroom… you can see a microcosm of the Philippines as a nation. It was a veritable who’s who… where the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly were all there, except the latest bad boy in the Senate, Sen. Antonio Trillanes, III who most probably wasn’t invited.

Call it a 40-year celebration of the life and times of JPE, who, 40-years ago was the alter ego of the late Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos and his Martial Law administration. Fast forward 40 years later, JPE is Senate President and his guest of honor is Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III, the son of the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. who was arrested using a xeroxed Arrest, Search and Seizure Order (ASSO) signed by JPE, the Defense Minister during the Martial Law years.

And stranger still, the dinner was hosted by ABS-CBN’s Oscar Lopez, Chairman Emeritus of the Lopez Holdings Corporation, the brother of Eugenio Lopez, Jr. who was also imprisoned by the Marcoses and their media empire confiscated. He is the uncle of ABS-CBN Chairman and CEO Eugenio Lopez, III. Indeed, 40 years is a long time for people to forgive or hopefully forget. But has anyone really forgiven or forgotten? For sure the assortment of political personalities come from all colors of the rainbow.

Notable amongst the special guests was Superma’am, former First Lady Imelda “Imeldific” Marcos. She was once the beautiful Imelda transformed into the Iron Butterfly and one of the principal suspects in the assassination of the late Sen. Ninoy Aquino, Jr. She must have been “exchanging glances” or “sneers” with those who brought them down from power.

What the JPE book-launching means to us, lesser mortals, is that for 40 years, nothing much has really changed in this country. What we are seeing are a changing of roles by JPE… first as a man in power, but reading properly the mindset of the Filipino people, he jumped ship from the conjugal Marcos dictatorship to be an EDSA hero, then to prison for those coup attempts and now back in power 40 years later.

What legacy will JPE leave us? Nothing really, but bad ugly politics. Under Enrile, the Senate is still voted at large making it the most elitist amongst elected seats for the country as you need at least a billion bucks to seek a Senate seat under the leadership of JPE and it’s not a great legacy!

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