Everybody happy at the book launch of Enrile
This has been a week of joyful epiphanies and uncanny reunions.
When Nelson Navarro invited me weeks ago to the launch of his latest work, I thought it would be just another event with the usual obligatory speeches and book signing. Over dinner at our favorite Rockwell Power Plant Mall hangout where us UP friends just naturally join tables and wax nostalgic, this prolific writer — one of the most brilliant editors of the UP Collegian during the tumultuous ’60s — was excited.
“This is the autobiography of Juan Ponce Enrile which I have been editing the past months,” Nelson said. It would be his 11th book project and he certainly seemed proud of it, like he was of his biography of the late STAR publisher Max Soliven.
How did it feel going through the thoughts of a tormentor who imprisoned him (almost) and his fellow activists during martial law? Obviously, those years of suffering are now but a painful memory and there is now a huge measure of respect for this man who has transformed himself from savage figure to statesman, from tormentor to mentor.
I myself must have secretly admired this man during chance encounters in the ’70s when one had no choice but to knock on his office door for a travel permit during martial law. Then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile looked charming beneath the formidable facade. I saw that he had the ability to laugh and make us laugh. And of course, he surely looked even more charming after he signed travel permits for us journalists.
Last Thursday, the most wonderful surprise came at the Peninsula ballroom when Senator Enrile’s book launch turned out to be a happy event where former political enemies embraced each other, and where former oppressors and exiled or jailed activists shook hands. Decades ago, it was unthinkable for a Lopez (whose clan leaders where jailed and their business properties sequestered) to be in the same room as an Enrile or a Marcos. But now, the ABS-CBN company of the Lopez clan is the proud publisher of the Enrile book. Decades ago, activist leaders Ericson Baculinao and Chito Sta. Romana were brandishing placards against the Marcos regime and its military face Enrile. But now, here they are, paying homage and shaking hands with the man who made them quiver with rage during that time when they wept for their country and thought they could change the world.
As he delivered his speech, Senator Enrile did make us laugh (see, that old charm of his was showing). More than that, the 88-year-old man of the hour made us ponder. And realize the truth: “If I have lasted this long in life and in politics, God must be on my side.”
Yes, God wanted him to be happy. Practically everybody who mattered in government and business was invited and was present.
But of course, Senator Antonio Trillanes was not invited.
As if everyone wanted to tell Enrile: Gusto ko, happy ka.
