PRIVATE LIVES

By Amado P. Macasaet


The plunder cases against 90-year old Senator Juan Ponce Enrile are not made easier or harder to bear by media’s ceaseless narration of what is described as his extra-marital affair with his chief of staff.

I have great admiration for Johnny Enrile probably because I am a sucker for notice.

I never thought he would remember me as his student in political law in Far Eastern University sometime in the late fifties.

He was fresh from Harvard University where he completed a master’s degree in law, specializing in international taxation. Alfio Locsin, my editor in the old Manila Times, brought me to breakfast with Enrile who was then commissioner of customs.

Enrile told me “I can’t remember your name but you were in my class in political law.”

He had the crew cut of his father, the famous lawyer, Alfonso Ponce Enrile I never knew until I heard from Justice Mariano H. de Joya that he, too, was a pensionado of the American commonwealth government in the Philippines, for a law degree in a university in the United States.

This friendship is personal between me and the man.

People hate JPE for being administrator of martial law. Ferdinand Marcos trusted him with his soul for that job. I thought he did his best for his master. He might have offended a lot of people in the process.

I had always understood that one-man rule is abusive. I had always believed it would someday come to an end sooner than later. Enrile helped the end to come sooner.

Enrile was “hero” to his people. He was traitor to Ferdinand Marcos. He and Fidel Ramos led a revolt that felled the dictator.

I believe he redeemed himself for the sins and offenses he committed while serving the dictator by turning his back against him. He masterfully presided over the impeachment trial and conviction of Chief Justice Renato Corona probably sharing the belief of President Aquino that Gloria Arroyo’s Head Magistrate would prevent the Supreme Court from serving the ends of justice. Nobody could have done the job in that Senate better than Enrile did.

None of these, particularly his reported affair with Gigi Gonzalez Reyes, has anything to do with his guilt or innocence of the crime of plunder he is accused of.

Media reports say he carried a love affair with Gigi Gonzalez, brilliant lawyer and more important to me she is the daughter of my late friend Pat Gonzalez, who was editor of the Manila Daily Bulletin.

I worked for him. He kept saying I worked with him. That friendship is also personal between me and Pat.

Why shouldn’t any relationship between Gigi and JPE – if it existed at all -- be similarly personal? JPE and Gigi had Sunday evening visits to President Joseph Estrada when he was in detention at the Veterans Memorial Hospital. They did not look like lovebirds in the crowd visiting the deposed President. Gigi’s demeanor was that of an assistant in the company of her boss.

I thought that media should have some respect for private lives particularly as they relate to what is described as illicit relationship between a lawmaker and his chief of staff. What JPE and Gigi did in their private moments, if they ever had any, is private to them. Media should respect this.

King Edward VIII gave up the throne of England to marry Mary Wallace Simpson, an American divorcee. It did not create that much of a ripple among the subjects of the king.

Joseph Estrada has children with at least two other women. Luisa Pimentel, Estrada’s lawfully wedded wife took all of it on the chin. As a matter of fact, she adopted her husband’s children with other women as her own. Media did not make an issue of immorality against Estrada when he was running for President. He won handsomely in spite of hectic campaign against him by some sectors in media.

Juan Ponce Enrile and Lucila “Gigi” Gonzalez are in deep trouble with the law for alleged plunder. Like the rest of the accused in the pork barrel scam JPE and Gigi claimed innocence of the charges. They will defend themselves. Does the alleged illicit love affair between the two strengthen the evidence for the prosecution or does it help them acquit themselves? Irrelevant as lawyers love to say in the courtroom.

I thought it was enough that Cristina Castañer, wife of JPE, said on television she was suing for divorce. But she clarified that Gigi is not the woman or one among the women Enrile had affairs with.

Her plan to divorce her husband is private to the couple. Cristina is a decent woman. She was all over the place during the launching of her husband’s autobiography.

It would be the duty of media to expose the “love affair” between Gigi and JPE if the relationship brought harm to the state. There is no proof it did. If there is, the evidence should be submitted to the Sandiganbayan.

Invasion of privacy is a “crime” not punished by law. It is a moral question that nobody should have any answer to. Privacy as it relates to “illicit love affair” as in the case of JPE and Gigi deserves some respect. We might say the pot should not call the kettle black without reference to anybody.

The offended party is JPE’s wife. She is taking legal steps by seeking a divorce. Enrile has not done much about it beyond saying Cristina’s feelings are common among jealous wives.

The alleged relationship is a proper subject for Mrs. Enrile but again the object of her ire is not Gigi.

Cristina Castañer said she is seeking a divorce in the United States. Media has reported it as a matter of duty. Beyond that, we should leave JPE and Gigi alone.

Yet we grant media’s right to watch and scrutinize the behavior of public officials like the 90-year-old love child Juan Ponce Enrile, son of a poor girl from Gonzaga, Cagayan with whom Don Alfonso had an illicit affair.

Did media ever detail the fact that JPE was a love child? The man proudly admitted that he is. That admission denied media the chance to expose his “illicit” origins. Now it turns to JPE and Gigi. What is there to gain in not leaving people alone to their private lives? I see none. Some see a lot but they do not explain what it is.

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Email:amadomacasaet@yahoo.com- See more at: http://www.malaya.com.ph/business-news/opinion/private-lives