‘Not a hero’: Rights groups, citizens denounce Enrile’s Libingan ng mga Bayani burial

Over 100 organizations and individuals oppose the burial of Juan Ponce Enrile at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) scheduled on Nov. 22, stating that his interment is a form of historical distortion that ignores his role in the machinery of the Martial Law regime.

“Juan Ponce Enrile is not a hero. He never was, and he never will be,” read the collective statement on the Tindig Pilipinas Facebook page.

They further stressed that his burial at the LNBM echoes the 2016 burial of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and warned of the irony of rebranding them in death as ‘heroes,’ while their victims have continued to suffer injustice.

“Let us make this clear: the burial of Juan Ponce Enrile at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is historical distortion. It is a lie that, yet again, whitewashes the crimes of the Marcos Sr. dictatorship,” they added. 

The opposition was initiated by Project Gunita, a Filipino academic research organization dedicated to archiving historical materials and resisting attempts at historical distortion.

Included in the statement is a compiled list of Enrile’s crimes since his time as a defense minister during the Marcos Sr. dictatorship, which they stress as a “legacy of impunity” during Martial Law in which he neither atoned for nor was held accountable.

Moreover, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) also issued a statement asserting that he does not belong in the LNMB, stressing that “it forces the Filipino people to accept as ‘heroic’ what the law and history have already condemned.”

Dubbed as the “chief architect of martial law”, Enrile was among the so-called Rolex 12, a group of 11 military officials and one civilian who helped Marcos Sr. craft Proclamation 1081, which placed the entire Philippines under martial law. 

On the evening of September 22, 1972, he staged an ambush on himself to justify the declaration.

According to historical records, the dictatorial regime resulted in 70,000 individuals being unjustly detained, 34,000 subjected to torture, 3,240 deaths, and 737 victims of enforced disappearance.

Throughout the Martial Law years, Enrile was involved in numerous brutal massacres across Mindanao, including the Burning of Jolo and Palimbang Massacre in 1974, Patikul Massacre in 1977, and the Pata Island Massacre 1981.

He was also a key figure, alongside crony Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, in diverting and stealing billions of pesos from the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) that had been collected from farmers since 1972.

Part of the funds, which were worth billions of pesos, were used to finance the expansion of Enrile’s business empire.

In 2024, the Sandiganbayan dismissed the last of the ill-gotten wealth cases involving the coco levy fund due to inordinate delay.

At the age of 101, Enrile died on Nov. 13 after being admitted to the hospital with late stage pleuritis.