Overview
- Enrile died on Nov. 13 at home at 4:21 pm local time after treatment for pneumonia, according to his daughter, who said a public viewing will be held.
- A chief designer and enforcer of Ferdinand Marcos’s 1972 martial law, he wielded sweeping powers as defense minister during a period documented by Amnesty International as rife with torture, killings and mass detentions.
- He broke with Marcos in 1986, helping trigger the People Power uprising that ended the dictatorship and brought Corazon Aquino to the presidency.
- His six-decade career included stints as customs chief, justice minister, defense secretary, and Senate president from 2008 to 2013, followed by his 2022 appointment as chief legal counsel to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
- He faced arrests in 1990 and 2001 over alleged coup plots and in 2014 on plunder charges; the Supreme Court granted him bail in 2015 for health reasons, a special court dismissed plunder in 2024, and remaining graft cases were acquitted in October 2025.