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<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-6/cory-misuari-sm.webp" alt="Cory Aquino and Nur Misuari in Sulu" />
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(Cory Aquino with Misuari in Sulu in September 1986)
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<p>
Cory Aquino started picking on Enrile right after the EDSA revolt when he strongly opposed her arbitrary release of the key leaders of the communist party, their socialist allies and after meeting with MILF chieftain Nur Misuari in Sulu.
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<p>
Joker Arroyo, Cory's executive secretary, asked Enrile to go with him to a room in the Premier Guest House of Malacañang after a Cabinet meeting on Misuari.
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<p>
Joker went straight to the point: 
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<div class="article-comment">
<p>
"Cory asked me to tell you that you have nothing to worry about your ill-gotten wealth."
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<p>
Enrile recalled in his copyrighted memoir in 2012:
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<div class="article-comment">
<p>
"I was taken aback but I kept my composure. I did not expect such a direct accusation of corruption thrown at me, and the assurance not to worry about it. I realized when Joker made that remark that President Aquino entertained the though that I was one of those who amassed ill-gotten wealth during the Marcos regime.
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<p>
"I told Joker, 'Tell the President that I appreciate her concern. But tell her too that I have no ill-gotten wealth. If she has any doubt about me in that regard, tell her not to hesitate to expose me to an investigation'."
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<p>
"In my early years in the government, I incorporated myself. I organized Jaka and transferred all the assets of my family to it in exchange for its shares of stock. Everything my family owned from then on was in the name of Jaka. This way, it was easy to account for every asset acquired by my family, especially as to the sources of funds used to acquire the asset."
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<p>
Predictably, Cory secretly organized a team, headed by then-Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Bienvenido Tan, to investigate Enrile. With Tan were representatives of the Commission on Audit, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the police.
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<p>
After a thorough scrutiny, they found no hidden wealth, and all that the investigating body did, perhaps just as a face-saving gesture, was to assess him and his corporate enterprises with deficiency income tax in an aggregate amount of less than P50,000.
</p>
<p>
The injustice done on Enrile, however, did not stop there. In 1990 the Aquino regime imprisoned him without bail on a nonexistent crime of "rebellion complex" filed by then- Justice Secretary and now Senator Franklin M. Drilon after Enrile criticized President Corazon Aquino for some intractable issues, such as:
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<ol class="article-list">
<li>
Abolishing the 1973 Constitution, under which she took her oath of office and ran the country under a dictatorship.
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<li>
The wholesale release of the ranking members of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Light-A-Fire terror group.
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<li>
The massive graft and plunder in her government.
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<li>
Scrapping the Ministry of Energy and the subsequent privatization of the energy industry that saw the dissipation of multibillion-peso assets and the subsequent increases in oil prices and electricity rates.
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<p>
For saying that:
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<div class="article-comment">
<p>
 "The Constitution has been violated, laid aside or ignored in many decisions of the President. The laws have been set aside whenever their execution would affect those orbiting around the President. The full force of the law is exerted only when and if those involved are perceived to be political enemies or sympathetic to the opposition."
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<p>
Even this writer, who was only writing Enrile's stories in the legitimate pursuit of his profession, was also charged with the same offense of rebellion complex and later with other heinous crimes in an effort to silence him (see introduction of my book, Greed and Betrayal, published by Amazon and written by then-Inquirer columnist Adrian Cristobal on how this writer was persecuted).
</p>
<p>
Strangely, Enrile found himself again in a similar, but in a worst, situation, this time accused 16 times of a non-bailable and bailable offenses, using the same body of evidence, one case of plunder and 15 cases of anti-graft, this time under President Benigno S. Aquino III, Cory's only son.
</p>
<p>
After more than a year in prison at a hospital in Camp Crame and deprived of his lawmaking rights and oversight functions as an elected senator, the Supreme Court en banc finally granted his petition for bail of P1 million for plunder and P30,000 per count of anti-graft cases, or a total of P1,450,000, after the prosecution failed to explain before the justices as to when, where, why and how he committed specifically the crimes of plunder and corruption.
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<p>
In May 2001 during President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's time, Enrile was also arrested for no specific offense by the police and the military for the unsuccessful siege of the Palace by pro-Estrada forces. He was released a day later.
</p>
<p>
In 2004 he ran again for the Senate under the banner of the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino and won. He actively campaigned against the imposition of the Purchased Power Adjustment (PPA) on consumers' electric bills and continued to criticize the government for this erroneous policy.
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<p>
Due to his persistent stand against the PPA, the SC ordered a multibillion-peso refund in favor of the consumers. The public responded positively, guarded his votes and elected him for three nonconsecutive terms. Now at 94, with a remarkable physical stamina and a sharp memory, Enrile was the oldest senator of the 16th Congress when he retired from politics.
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<p>
It is obvious that the people doing the cruel job on him are obsessed in trying to silence him by trying to put him in prison for the rest of his life, as reflected by the number of graft and plunder cases filed against him, without realizing that they cannot imprison his mind and his legacy.
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<p>
Besides, the issues Enrile brought forth are the same pestering problems that are still valid today. In fact, many of these issues have remained unresolved and have worsened with the passage of time, particularly the country's energy and national-security problems, as both have correlations to the country's degenerating economic situation that impinge its survival.
</p>
<p>
If there's anything to learn from the foregoing, it is that President Duterte should be extra careful as the same cruel, ungrateful and deceitful people whose greed for absolute power remains unsatiated are at it again.
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<p>
<strong>Sources</strong>: 
</p>
<ul class="article-sources">
<li>
A US lawmaker and the Aquino regime spread fake news to destroy the Marcoses, Conclusion, <a href="https://goo.gl/DWzeQh" class="news_link" target="_blank" title="Source">Cecilio Arillo</a>, August 15, 2018,  Business Mirror
</li>
</ul>
<div class="source-note">
<p>
(This article is adapted from the source listed above. We are unable to grant permission for any kind of reproduction other than social media shares.)
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Why and how Cory secretly ordered the investigation of Enrile