JPE shrugs off WikiLeaks reports

MANILA, Philippines - For Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, dealing with a “leaking” eye is tougher than being confronted with a negative WikiLeaks report about his only son.

Making light of the WikiLeaks report linking his son Jack to a decades-old homicide case, Enrile said blood leaking from his right eye had hampered his sight and made him skip a campaign sortie yesterday with senatorial candidates of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), which include his congressman son.

Enrile told The STAR in a phone interview that he was “OK,” but that he has to undergo a medical procedure on Saturday.

“I just cannot go out because my right eye has bleeding condition. I just came from my doctor. I’m going to have injection this Saturday. He saw three points in my eye as the source of ‘leaking’ blood, the injection will arrest it with special drugs,” the Senate president said.

“The WikiLeaks are like my blood vessels. Let us laugh it off,” he said.

Enrile said he would have wanted to simply stay quiet amid the controversy, but decided to give an interview anyway to set the facts straight regarding the death of Ernest Lucas Jr., a Navy official’s son, in 1975 when he was defense minister.

“I want to keep quiet. I don’t want to be popular. I wonder why they’re afraid of us,” he said.

His son Jack, meanwhile, reiterated his appeal to political opponents to spare his 89-year-old father.

“My father is such a prominent personality and he’s an institution unto himself and many would feel uneasy about his popularity,” he said.

“The truth will always come out and you cannot make up facts. You cannot fake goodness, you cannot hide badness,” he said, quoting his mother Cristina. (From Philstar.com)