Thousands were killed or went missing during the brutal regime, and the Marcos family is accused of plundering state coffers of some US$10 billion.

Their rebellion was backed by the influential Catholic church, which marshalled millions of faithful along a major thoroughfare to protect Enrile and Ramos. That resulted in a“people power” revolution that eventually forced the Marcos family into exile in Hawaii in 1986.

He died there three years later, although his wife, Imelda and children were subsequently allowed to fly home.

The Marcos family has since rebuilt their political fortunes, and the alleged stolen wealth was never recovered in full. In 2022, his son and namesake, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, won as president. Several Marcos family members are either in the Senate or in the House of Representatives.

Often described as politically cunning, Enrile, a four-time elected senator, was the architect of the older Marcos' martial law, which rights groups said was designed to prolong the dictator's stay in power. In declaring martial law, Marcos said there was a need to stifle criminality, citing the ambush that Enrile survived.

“I honestly did not know why Marcos suddenly decided to cite my ambush in justifying the declaration of Martial Law,” Enrile wrote in his memoir, which he argued also brought“sweeping and dramatic changes” by restoring law and order to a“great extent.”

A group of activists jailed during martial law, however, said no tears should be shed for Enrile, whom they labeled as a“chief architect and enabler” of the dictatorship.

“For thousands of victims of the Marcos dictatorship, Enrile will forever be remembered neither as a patriot nor a statesman, but as one of the chief architects and defenders of tyranny, repression, and corruption in the country,” the Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (or SELDA), an organization of former political prisoners, said in a statement.

Enrile“justified the dictatorship through deception, including the staged ambush on his convoy, which was later exposed as a fabrication to rationalize the imposition of Marcos' one-man rule.”

“Enrile utilized to the hilt the military and police's role as instruments of state terror. Under his command, these entities arrested, tortured, and caused the enforced disappearance of thousands of activists, students, journalists, and ordinary citizens,” it said.

“Enrile's hands are stained with the blood and suffering of countless victims of martial law,” SELDA said, adding that Enrile in later years chose to distort and defend the Marcos family by“whitewashing their plunder and tyranny.”

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His breakaway from Marcos was meant to“save his own skin” as the dictatorship crumbled, and not borne out of principle, it argued.

He later reconciled with the Marcos family and at the time of his death, Enrile was Marcos Jr's legal adviser,“a chilling symbol of how impunity persists and history repeats itself under the current regime,” SELDA said.

“His long life was one spent in the service of power, not of justice,” the group stressed, adding that his death“should not close the book on the crimes of martial law or on the corruption that he and his ilk have perpetuated.”

“Instead, it should strengthen the people's resolve to continue the fight for truth, justice and freedom,” the group said.

Jason Gutierrez was head of Philippine news at BenarNews, an online news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia (RFA), a Washington-based news organization that covered many under-reported countries in the region. A veteran foreign correspondent, he has also worked with The New York Times and Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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