Post-Enrilean Epoch

JPE with Brownie

Kara David is doing some serious manifesting with all that's happening to corrupt government officials lately, that started with the passing of the late, notorious, Juan Ponce Enrile, the biggest political butterfly this country has ever known since the days of the makapili.

Funny story first: I have a friend who has a second degree of proximity to the old Enrile. His grandfather once rescued Manong Johnny from childhood bullies once, back in the day when they were both youths living in the province. The joke was that with JPE's death, the life debt is paid and the energy has come to return, full circle, once again. 

I personally don't know what to make of JPE. The guy rose to infamy back when he deflected from the elder Marcos, becoming one of the lynchpins that would topple the dictator from power. That's a good thing, right? But then he went on to rebel against Cory Aquino, the president he helped put in power. But after that, he exonerated himself and rose into prominence as a figure in the senate, even becoming one of that body's head honcho, and a well-respected figure at that.

And then he'd go on into semi-retirement for the next half-decade or so only to come out of retirement by becoming the legal adviser for the administration of the son of the president he was instrumental in deposing in the first place, at which point he was at the cusp of becoming a centenarian. 

I'm reminded of that one Simpsons clip while reading what I just wrote: 

So many full circle things in JPE's life. And the funny thing is, I'm hard put to find somebody who has nothing good to say about the man. No matter how many corruption allegations he's survived, no matter how many sides he's shifted to in his 100 years of life, there's always something to celebrate about JPE. The man is a voracious reader, for example. Or the fact that despite his alleged proclivity to corruption, he still makes sound decisions that, in one way or another, benefits the republic. He isn't overtly corrupt, which puts many of his current colleagues to shame.

But then again you can go and say that yeah, the guy had a hundred years to clean up and perfect his systems. Of course you wouldn't catch him in action. It's a hundred years too early, yadda yadda. 

Well, whatever the case may be, Manong Johnny has, for better or worse, gone the way of his beloved pet Brownie (the velociraptor), ushering in the post-Enrilean epoch, and hopefully many more corruptors in the Philippine government follow in his wake, either by example or by imprisonment.