Cristina’s cry scripted?

By Al S. Mendoza

CRISTINA Ponce Enrile has come forward in defense of her husband.

She said Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, her husband of 56 years, is a womanizer but “he is not a thief.”

We all know that Enrile was implicated in the P10-billion scam of pork barrel funds orchestrated chiefly by Janet Napoles-Lim.

Lim is behind bars but not Enrile and fellow Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, who were also named recipients of alleged millions of pesos in kickbacks by whistle-blower Benhur Luy.

Also implicated in the biggest money scam to hit Philippine politics is Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, the rumored paramour of Enrile.

Reyes, who served as Enrile’s chief of staff “with full dedication, honesty and loyalty” before resigning last year, had left the country before charges against her were filed at the Ombudsman.  Her whereabouts are unknown.

OK, a little bit of history.

Gigi was the little girl I always carried whenever her Dad hosted our weekend poker session in their Pasay home.

A bundle of joy, Gigi, perhaps not yet 10 years old, would rush to my arms upon my arrival, shouting in gleeful innocence, “Tito Al!”

This was Martial Law in the ’70s, when the late, lamented Pat Gonzales, Gigi’s Dad, was City Editor of Bulletin Today, the former name of Manila Bulletin.

Quezon D. Mangawang, Resty Samson and Ding Marcelo were my poker mates, with Dear Pat ever the gracious host and generous player.

Pat would always lend money to anyone of us running out of cash.  This, he did on top of his pouring out an endless supply of brandy, if not cognac.

Oh, how Resty (bless his soul), the jolly Bulletin fotog, loved brandy.

But Quezon D, our Malacanang reporter who migrated to the US before Edsa ’86, loved to nurse his brandy glass as much as he loved keeping his cards close to his chest.

While Resty was easy to read, Quezon was the hardest to bluff.

But overall, since Ding and I were the babies in the group (Pat had loved and favored us that much because he was a sportswriter like us first before he rose to the top, becoming the paper’s editor-in-chief months before the Edsa Revolt), we had been practically mere decorations.

Ding and I just loved Dear Pat’s cognac collection!  We gulped those precious drops with gusto!

Anyways, back to Cristina.

Did she say something new?

No.  She said Gigi was Enrile’s most favored of the senator’s 38 mistresses.

And, yes, she was emphatic:  “Enrile is not a thief.”

Yes, nothing new there:  Accusing a hubby of philandering has been the most common pastime of unhappy wives.

But, hey, show me a wife who would call her husband a thief?

Was Solita Monsod, who interviewed Cristina on TV, being naïve?

Or, to the naughty, was it scripted—so as to picture Enrile as innocent and Gigi the culprit, the real mastermind?  Gigi as fall guy?

Your call, your honor.

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