Johnny’s ‘cinematic’ life story

If Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, noted for making feel-good films, were to do the bioflick of his uncle, senatoriable Johnny Ponce-Enrile, I’m sure he’ll do a dramatic success story about a love child, a poor boy from a fishing village in Cagayan province, who ended his search for his biological father 21 years after he was born on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14, 1924).

It would be an episodic story, with the first part showing the boy (maybe with Jiro Manio of Magnifico fame as actor?) fishing with his stepfather at night and hunting by day, and walking to school barefoot with only two short pants and two shirts, moonlighting as a houseboy to help sustain himself and the family; the second episode, about the teenager turned soldier during World War II; and the third episode, about his reconciliation with his father and, now a lawyer like his elder, his rise in politics as a fighting Senator.

Johnny’s being a love child was chronicled by Nick Joaquin (Quijano de Manila) in an article entitled Juan Ponce Enrile’s Secret in the October 1971 issue of the Philippine Free Press when Johnny first ran for public office. The great Nick Joaquin did such an endearing portrait of Johnny that you can’t help noting how very "cinematic" Johnny’s life story is.

As condensed from that memorable Free Press story, here’s how I envision the synopsis (the early episodes, that is) of direk Carlitos’ magnum opus would run:

Juan Ponce Enrile was born Juanito Furuganan in Barrio Mision (now Karuan) in Gonzaga town to Petra Furuganan, daughter of a poor Ilocano fisherman. Juanito’s father, lawyer Alfonso Ponce Enrile, met Petra during a campaign in 1923 when he ran for reelection as representative of the province in the Philippine Legislature. Don Alfonso was already married at that time; when he lost in the election, he moved his family to Manila and never again saw the poor, pretty Petra with whom he had a fleeting relationship, perhaps unaware that he had a love child with her.

Petra eventually married a fisherman by whom she had six children. The stepfather and half-children treated Juanito like their own. Juanito would sail out to sea to fish at night with his stepfather, going home at dawn, and Petra would sell their catch in the market.

Juanito wanted to be an engineer but an incident in high school made him change his mind. He was roughed up by a rich schoolmate and his gangmates over a girl the rich boy mistakenly thought Juanito was courting. When Juanito filed a case against his influential assailants, the case was dismissed. He was just a poor boy, you know. He learned the hard reality of justice in the Philippines and resolved to become a lawyer.

A series of flashbacks in slowmo, showing Juanito working his butt off to be able to go to school, doing odd jobs at night to earn his keep. The war was over and Juanito’s long search for his father (whom he knew only from a faded campagin handbill kept by his mother) was about to reach its dramatic climax.

With his P300 savings, Juanito bade his family in Cagayan province goodbye and boarded a truck to Manila where he looked for Don Alfonso.

Nick Joaquin quoted Johnny describing that touching reunion between father and son thus: "He embraced me and called me son. He said, ‘Son, I am sorry we have been separated for so long.’ Then he asked what I wanted. I said, being very proud, that I wanted nothing from him except that he send me to school."

And Don Alfonso, who had by then remarried, did, legitimizing Juanito Furuganan by giving the long-lost son his surname after Juanito finished high school at St. James Academy in Malabon where Don Alfonso’s family was staying. Juanito was also introduced to his half-siblings – Lita, Armida, Irma, Armando and Alfonso, Jr. – who also, like his half-siblings in Cagayan province, treated him like their own.

After finishing Associate in Arts cum laude at Ateneo in l949, Juanito/Johnny studied law at UP, earning P125 a month by working as his father’s secretary, and passed the bar in l954 with a rating of 91.72 percent. Later, he accepted a scholarship at Harvard and specialized in corporation law and taxation. It wasn’t long before he would follow in the footsteps of his father towards a career in politics.

I leave it to direk Carlitos to tell the rest of his Uncle Johnny’s story.

Now running again for Senator, Johnny is as sturdily-built as most hardworking, sun-soaked Ilocanos are, keeping fit and trim, he revealed, by playing golf, walking, water-skiing and Taekwondo.

"No, I don’t," Johnny smiled when asked if he takes Viagra by a writer during a free-wheeling chit-chat with the movie press organized by Regal Matriarch Mother Lily Monteverde. "I don’t have to, I don’t need to."

Perhaps, direk Carlitos’ dream movie should fade out with an epilogue by his mother, Armida "Tita Midz" Siguion-Reyna, like this:

I close my eyes and I can still see him chopping firewood, fetching water from the well, eating his favorite Paksiw na Bangus and cold rice, driving the jeep to bring us his half-brothers and half-sisters from home to school and back, doing various chores for my mother, Purita, whom he has learned to love as his own and who loved him just as well.

I remember not only our happy moments back then but also the petty quarrels common among siblings and the endless discussions and debates when we picked each other’s brains. To fight with my brother is not to know him well; to be his adversary somehow, strangely and oddly, makes you his friend. Whether he keeps you as such is another matter; but all those who know him well know that he clashes only with those he thinks are worth the effort. Otherwise, he ignores you and treats you as if aren’t even there.

Johnny is a maverick who does not go for popular opinion but for what he deems to be correct. He will fight even to death, even if it means fighting alone. In that sense, we are not just related by blood, we are kindred spirits.

Suplado siya, suplada rin ako!

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