Juan Ponce Enrile Passes Away at 101
Longtime politician Juan Ponce Enrile passed away on Thursday, November 13, his family confirmed. He was 101 years old.
Katrina, his daughter, said in a Facebook post:
"It is with profound love and gratitude that my father, Juan Ponce Enrile, peacefully returned to his Creator on November 13, 2025, at 4:21 p.m., surrounded by our family in the comfort of our home.
It was his heartfelt wish to take his final rest at home, with his family by his side. We were blessed to honor that wish and to be with him in those sacred final moments."
On Tuesday, November 11, Senator Jinggoy Estrada announced during the Senate plenary session that the late Senator was "in the intensive care unit of an undisclosed hospital." He also said that he "heard from a very, very reliable source that he has slim chances of surviving." Estrada asked the group to say a short prayer.
Enrile was last seen in public, at least via a live feed, when he remotely attended the ruling of his 15 pending graft cases linked to the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam. He was already at the hospital and suffering from pneumonia back then, according to her daughter, Katrina.
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Who was Juan Ponce Enrile?
Juan Ponce Enrile was born Juan Valentin Furagganan on February 14, 1924, in Gonzaga, Cagayan, to Petra Furagganan. He was baptized into the Philippine Independent Church (Aglipayan) as Juanito Furagganan and converted to Roman Catholicism at age 20. It was only when he was reunited with his father, Spanish mestizo lawyer and provincial politician (in Cagayan), Alfonso Ponce Enrile, that he was legally named Juan Ponce Enrile, which he started using in pre-law.
Enrile graduated cum laude in 1949 with an Associate of Arts degree from Ateneo de Manila, then a Bachelor of Laws degree as cum laude from the University of the Philippines. He passed the 1953 bar examinations with a 91.72% rating and a ranking of 11th, then went on to earn a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School in 1955, specializing in taxation and corporate reorganization. Upon returning to the Philippines, he joined his father’s law firm, Ponce Enrile, Siguion Reyna, Montecillo, and Belo, where he practiced law and taught insurance and tax law at the University of the Philippines.
Juan Ponce Enrile and Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
In 1964, Enrile formed a professional relationship with then-Senator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., whose personal legal affairs became his responsibility. He became part of his inner circle until the elder Marcos was elected the 10th President of the Philippines in 1965.
From 1966 to 1968, Enrile was the Undersecretary and sometimes Acting Secretary of the Department of Finance. He also concurrently served as Commissioner of the Bureau of Customs. In 1968, he was appointed Secretary of Justice, a position he held until 1970, when he became the Secretary of National Defense. In 1971, he resigned to run for the Senate (but lost). He was reappointed Minister of National Defense in January 1972.
Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile with President Ferdinand Marcos
Enrile played a critical and controversial role in the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. He was the official signatory and primary executor of the presidential decree, Proclamation No. 1081, which suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus and subsequently placed the entire country under military rule. Marcos famously cited a purported ambush attempt on Enrile's convoy (a white Mercedes-Benz sedan) on September 22, 1972, near Wack-Wack, as one of the key justifications for the declaration.
Marcos, in his diary entry that evening (time-stamped 9:55 p.m.) wrote, "Sec. Juan Ponce Enrile was ambushed near Wack-Wack at about 8:00 pm tonight. It was a good thing he was riding in his security car as a protective measure… This makes the martial law proclamation a necessity."
Enrile served as Minister of National Defense throughout the Martial Law regime of the late dictator. He also concurrently served various positions during those years, including Member of the Interim Batasang Pambansa from Region II (1978 to 1984) and Member of the Regular Batasang Pambansa from Cagayan (1984 to 1986).
Eventually, Marcos relied more heavily on General Fabian Ver, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and a close relative, instead of on Enrile. He even supported the establishment of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM), a clandestine group of military officers who plotted to overthrow the Marcos administration.
Following the 1986 snap presidential election, Enrile, alongside then-AFP Vice Chief of Staff Fidel V. Ramos, publicly announced their resignation from the government and their withdrawal of support for Marcos on February 22, 1986. The late senator also disputed the authenticity of the ambush that was supposedly the cause of Marcos' Martial Law declaration. Finally, on February 25, 1986, the People Power Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the Marcos administration as the Marcos clan fled to Hawaii.
Juan Ponce Enrile's supposed bullet-riddled car
Enrile After EDSA
Enrile served as Minister of National Defense in the provisional government of President Corazon C. Aquino. However, soon became an outspoken critic of the post-EDSA administration, and was later implicated in the "God Save the Queen" plot that was supposed to overthrow Aquino. The Fact-Finding Commission found Enrile and some members of the RAM as the primary instigators of the coup. He was forced to resign as Defense Secretary in November 1986.
Still, his political career continued to thrive, often shifting between the executive and legislative branches of government. He was elected to represent the 1st District of Cagayan in the House of Representatives from 1992 to 1998. He was elected to the Senate of the Philippines three times, and even served for two terms on the last one: 1987 to 1992, 1995 to 2001, and 2004 to 2016. He was also President of the Senate of the Philippines from 2008 to 2013.
Finally, at the age of 98, he assumed office in 2022 as Chief Presidential Legal Counsel of incumbent President Bongbong Marcos, son of the president whom he had supported for decades.
Enrile (left) during President Benigno Aquino III's first SONA in 2010
The Pork Barrel Scam
Enrile was indicted in one of the largest corruption scandals in Philippine history: the misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) (a.k.a. Pork Barrel).
It was in 2014 when the Office of the Ombudsman filed charges of plunder and graft against Enrile, alleging he received P172.8 million in commissions (a.k.a. kickbacks) from 2004 to 2010 (under the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo). The prosecution claimed that Enrile allocated his PDAF funds to bogus Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) controlled by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles.
Enrile was arrested in July 2014 following the filing of these charges. However, a year later, the Supreme Court granted his petition for bail on "humanitarian consideration," citing his advanced age and frail health condition, allowing him to be released while the case proceeded. After years of litigation, the anti-graft court, the Sandiganbayan, ultimately acquitted Enrile of all charges. The court first acquitted him of the plunder charge in October 2024, ruling that the prosecution failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, specifically by failing to establish that the total kickbacks he allegedly received met the minimum P50-million threshold required for the crime of plunder under Philippine law.
In October 2025, the Sandiganbayan also cleared Enrile and his co-accused of the remaining 15 counts of graft. The court once again cited the prosecution's failure to prove all elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, noting that Enrile's endorsement of the NGOs was merely recommendatory. The court stressed that the burden of proving he received direct kickbacks or was fully aware of the NGOs being bogus was not successfully met by the prosecution.
Living Beyond a Hundred
On February 14, 2024, Enrile turned 100. He has outlived both the United Kingdom's Queen Elizabeth and King Rama IX of Thailand, two of the longest-reigning monarchs of the 20th century. As a public figure who has lived long enough, he was often the subject of puff pieces and memes that list down things that were younger than him, including the creation of Mickey Mouse (1928), the first Academy Awards (1929), the Berlin Wall (1961), Wall Street Crash (1929), Spanish Civil War (1936), and World War II (1939).
Enrile is survived by his wife Cristina Castañer GarcÃa, and two children, Juan Jr. or Jack (former congressman for the 1st District of Cagayan) and Katrina (CEO of Jaka Group).
