Enrile: Affairs just suspicions of a wife

MANILA, Philippines – Thirty-eight affairs? For Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, these are mere suspicions.

The 90-year-old controversial politician responded to his wife’s rare interview, where she said she counted 38 affairs of Enrile. Cristina Castañer Enrile told GMA News TV that of the 38, the one with his resigned chief of staff lawyer Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes prompted her to leave for the United States and seek divorce.

Yet Senator Enrile said there was no truth to claims of marital infidelity.

“Those are the suspicions of a wife,” Enrile told reporters on Wednesday, March 5.

Cristina’s comments come as Enrile faces a plunder complaint over the multi-billion-peso pork barrel scam, where Reyes is his co-accused. The two allegedly connived with Janet Lim Napoles to endorse her fake non-governmental organizations as recipients of his pork barrel funds. Enrile supposedly got P172.8 million in kickbacks.

Enrile also commented on his wife’s defense of him amid persistent allegations he runs a smuggling mafia in Cagayan, and that he is the mastermind of the scam.

The minority leader reiterated that he is open to any investigation.

In the interview that aired on Monday night, Cristina said she does not believe Enrile was the brains behind the scam. “I don’t think that Johnny is that stupid.”

On smuggling, she said: “I can vouch for it. From the very beginning, he said – I was present in the meeting – he said, ‘I don’t want to know that anybody tries to smuggle anything, even toothpick.’”

After she flew to the US, Cristina said Enrile told her: “Over my dead body will I give you a divorce.”

She said Reyes and her husband eventually “lay low” and their relationship became one of “necessity” for “his work.”

Reyes resigned as Enrile’s chief of staff in January 2013, at the height of the Senate fund scandal, where she got into a word war with Enrile critic Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano.

Affair highlighted in scam hearings

In a hearing last February 13, Cayetano asked self-confessed scam bagman Ruby Tuason about the rumored affair with Reyes in an effort to establish a direct link to Enrile.

“Isn’t it that the relationship of Attorney Gigi and Senator Enrile is common knowledge? She talked about it openly, that she would go to his house, have lunch there,” Cayetano said.

Yet Tuason said she was unsure whether or not Enrile knew about her delivery of bags of cash to Reyes.

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago also asked why Enrile had to pick up Reyes from these meetings with Tuason. Santiago has repeatedly called Reyes Enrile’s “concubine.”

“Why is he picking up his chief of staff?” Does it mean she is his wife or querida (mistress)? Why would he pick up a chief of staff, who is supposed to be your servant?”

“Why will this 90-year-old man pick up a woman young enough to be his daughter?” Santiago asked.

Enrile said he believes Reyes will not turn against him. He said he has not talked to her since she left the country last year after the scam broke out. He vouches for their innocence in the scam.

“I have faith in her honesty and integrity because she has been working for me for almost 25 years, and there has never been any occasion that she violated that degree of rectitude expected from a public servant.” – Rappler.com