100 years ago today, the tenth anniversary of the start of WW1 was four months away.  The Philippines, in the middle of its first and second republic was under American rule in the roaring 20s, the Korean Peninsula had been under Japanese rule for over a decade, and Germany’s Weimar Republic will arrest Adolf Hitler in the coming month only to release him by December.  In three months J.Edgar Hoover will be appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a month prior Vladimir Lenin died.  The Summer Olympics will be held in Paris and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Rat.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile was born.

90 years ago today, the twentieth anniversary of the start of WW1 was four months away with the start of WW2 five years away.  The Philippines in the middle of its first and second republic was under American rule in the Great Depression and a month later the Tydings-Mcduffie Act passed as the start of a transition period towards a self-governing Philippines, a year later they will hold national elections.  Also in a month, Puyi the last emperor of China who was made to abdicate twelve years prior will be made the monarch of Japan’s puppet state in Manchuria, and Adolf Hitler who had been Chancellor of Germany for a year already will anoint himself Fuhrer in the summer.  In two months a photograph of the Loch Ness Monster will be published in The Daily Mail, a month later Bonnie and Clyde will be gunned down and one month after that Marie Curie will die.  The host country will defeat Czechoslovakia in the World Cup in fascist Italy and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Dog.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned 10-years-old.

80 years ago today, the thirtieth anniversary of the start of WW1 was four months away and it was the sixth year of WW2.  The Philippines on its Second Republic was under Imperial Japanese occupation for 26 months already, 22 months prior approximately 10,000 prisoners of war died in the Bataan Death March and in 8 months General Douglas MacArthur will land on the beaches of Leyte.  The Japanese and Nazi Empires which at that point spanned most of East and Southeast Asia and Western and Eastern Europe respectively, were in their final year and in the next year the latter will find its Fuhrer dead, and the former their land victim to the power of the atom twice over.  In four months the Soviet Army will liberate Poland and the concentration camps in it and a month prior American and British troops landed on the beaches of Normandy.  By the end of the year socialism will begin to take root in Cuba and Vietnam, and at the start of August Manuel L. Quezon will die.  No Summer Olympics will be held and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Monkey.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned 20-years-old.

70 years ago today,  it would have been seven years since the Cold War began.  The Philippines on its Third Republic for the first time since 1565 became self-governing nine years ago and three years before he died in a plane crash in Cebu, Ramon Magsaysay was the president.  Throughout the year the United States having pulled out from a stalemate in the Korean peninsula a year before will enforce their military influence on countries in the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, Dwight Eisenhower will criticize this all the while committing them.  The Soviet Union having lost Joseph Stalin a year before will enforce their military influence on countries in Eastern Europe, East Germany will be recognized by Moscow as separate from West Germany and eight years later a wall will further that recognition.  Last month Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio and in the coming months both the first boxing match and late night talk show will be televised.  In seven months Finnish cartoonist Tove Jansson will release the first ever comic-strip of The Moomins, and three months before that within ten days Elvis Presley released his first single and J.R.R. Tolkein published the first novel of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Before the year ends the first Godzilla will premiere, Gamal Abdel Nasser will become president of Egypt after a coup and Frida Kahlo will die.  West Germany will defeat Hungary in the World Cup in Switzerland and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Horse.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned 30-years-old.

60 years ago today, it would’ve been seventeen years since the Cold War began.  The Philippines on its third republic had three years prior changed its date of independence from July 4, 1946 to June 12, 1899 asserting that the half century under American colonial rule was in fact “independence” Emilio Aguinaldo died two days prior, and Diosdado Macapagal was the president.  In six months an attack on the Gulf of Tonkin that never happened will justify Lyndon B. Johnson’s increased US military presence in Vietnam, he will win reelection that November.  Nikita Kruschev will serve as leader of the USSR for eight more months before being deposed and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev who will rule the Soviet Union until his death eighteen years later, Kruschev will die in seven years.  In two months a military dictatorship will be established in Brazil and two months after that Park Chung Hee will declare martial law in South Korea, both backed by the United States and both will return to democracy by the 1980s.  Sidney Poitier will make history in two months as the first African-American to win the Oscar for Best Lead Actor and at the end of the year Martin Luther King Jr. will become at the time the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate.  Meanwhile apartheid South Africa will sentence Nelson Mandela to life imprisonment in four months and be banned in the Olympics two months later as a result, and in September John Lennon said the Beatles who had just appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show seven months prior will not perform to a segregated audience in Florida.  Mary Poppins will premiere in Los Angeles in six months while 64 people will escape to West Berlin through a tunnel underneath the Berlin Wall two months later.  In December Che Guevara will address the United Nations General Assembly as a bazooka will be fired at the UN HQ in New York while three months before that the third period of the Second Vatican Council will open.  A horrific stampede during a football match between Peru and Argentina will happen in Lima, and a month prior Douglas Macarthur will die.  The Summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Dragon.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned forty-years-old.

50 years ago today, it would’ve been twenty-seven years since the Cold War began.  The Philippines on its fourth republic had three years prior been put under martial law, a state the nation will find itself in for the remainder of the decade, and Ferdinand Marcos had declared himself president for the foreseeable future.  The United States will be three years away from its tricentennial and in six months, five years after he greeted Niel Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins on their return from the moon, Richard Nixon will be the only president in American history to resign, Gerald Ford will be sworn in that afternoon and pardon Nixon.  The Soviet Union had been seeing an economic state of stagnation and detente left a cold war frigid.  Months prior to the fourth Arab-Israeli war, the Yom Kippur War took place and led to Golda Meir’s resignation, and an Arab oil embargo on nations who supported Israel leading to an oil crisis.  Greece and Turkey will tear Cyprus into two in July, a haphazard divide that remains to this day.  In three months India will execute its first successful nuclear bomb test making it the sixth country to be nuclearly armed, and left-leaning military officers in Portugal overthrow a dictatorship and ignite a Carnation Revolution the same month.  Also in April Stephen King will publish his first ever novel, Carrie and ABBA will win Eurovision with their song Waterloo.  Sometime in the year Erno Rubik will invent the Rubik’s Cube and in October Oskar Schindler will die.  The host country will defeat the Netherlands in the World Cup in West Germany and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Tiger.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned fifty-years-old.

40 years ago today, it would’ve been thirty-seven years since the Cold War began.  The Philippines on its fourth republic will mark its second decade under Ferdinand Marcos this year with public contempt brewing after Ninoy Aquino was shot dead on airport tarmac the summer before leaving a future president widowed and another partly orphaned, that contempt would boil over in two years.  The United States will see President Ronald Reagan win reelection with the biggest landslide victory for any Republican candidate, winning all but one state and Washington DC.  The Soviet Union will continue to struggle to find a leader after the death of Brezhnev two years ago, with his immediate replacement dying five days ago and the one replacing him passing eleven months from now, Mikhail Gorbechav will be the next in line and he would lead for unbeknownst to him the last six years of the USSR.  Leadership changes will the world, with protests for democracy that will occur in Brazil in April, Canada will gain a new prime minister in both June and September, New Zealand will call a snap election in July, and India will have its prime minister gunned down in October leaving her son in the position until he himself will be assassinated six years later.  A month ago Apple released the first ever Macintosh, Van Halen released their album 1984, Brunei gained independence from the UK, and Michael Jackson’s hair caught fire while filming a Pepsi commercial.  In eight months James Cameron’s The Terminator will come out in theaters, and five months before that a transit of Earth from Mars took place.  The first World Youth Day will be held in Rome, and in the same month Marvin Gaye will die.  The Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Rat.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned sixty-years-old.

30 years ago today, it would’ve been two years since the Cold War ended.  The Philippines on its fifth republic was on its second president post-return to democracy, Fidel V. Ramos who eight years prior was the head of the Philippine Constabulary under the dictatorship had won the smallest plurality in Philippine electoral history, Ferdinand Marcos had died five years before.  Bill Clinton was president of The United States of America, and Boris Yeltsin was the first president of the new Russian republic.  There will be a genocide in Rwanda in two months, Nelson Mandela will be South Africa’s first black president ending apartheid a month later, and two months after that Kim-Il Sung will die but to this day is still in power over North Korea officially.  Michael Jackson will marry Elvis Presley’s daughter in May, and throughout the year the Lion King, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, and Forrest Gump will be released in theaters, and by December Sony will launch the Playstation in Japan.  OJ Simpson will engage in a televised car chase on the Los Angeles highway after being accused of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman at the start of June, and in the same summer Jeff Bezos will found Amazon.  In eight months Sweden will vote to join the then two-year-old European Union, and seven months before that Kurt Cobain will die.  Brazil will win its third World Cup hosted by America and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Dog.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned seventy-years-old.

20 years ago today, it would’ve been five months and two weeks since I was born.  The Philippines on its fifth republic had three years prior for the second and so far latest time in its history took to the streets of EDSA and successfully ousted a president cutting Joseph Estrada’s presidential term three years short, he was succeeded by his VP Gloria Macapgal-Arroyo who will albeit in suspicious means win in the upcoming election in three months.  The United States will also have an election and in November George W. Bush will finally win the popular vote, partly due to national momentum from the attacks on the World Trade Center two Septmebers ago and the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq in the following two years, conflicts that will see American troops stationed in the Middle East for the next two decades.  Vladimir Putin had started to situate himself as the only leader the Russian Federation has known in the 20th century, and China will continue its economic and political soar on the global stage.  Israel, Spain, Russia, and Australia will be victims of a series of bombings that echoed from September 11th, and in Iraq the trial of Saddam Hussein that will lead to his death will begin in June.  Ten days ago Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in his Harvard campus, in four months the transit of Venus will be observed by human eyes for the first time since 1882, and four months after that the Boston Red Sox wonwins their first World Series championship in fourteen years.  Before the end of the year the Nintendo DS will come out in North America and two months before that Christopher Reeve will die.  The Summer Olympics will be held in Athens and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Monkey.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned eighty-years-old.

10 years ago today, it would’ve been ten years, five months, and two weeks since I was born.  The Philippines, in its fifth republic  recovering from the previous year’s Typhoon Yolanda, will begin the road to peace with the Islam south next month, only for it to be delayed a little under a year later during the Oplan Exodus, when Benigno Aquino III was the president.  The United States in its second year of the second term of their first African-American president will in six months march to the streets after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by a police officer in Missouri, the protests will only grow in the succeeding years.  Vladimir Putin will launch a Russian invasion of the Crimean Peninsula annexing it a month from now leading to international sanctions and Russia’s suspension from the G8, the Ukrainian invasion will only grow in the succeeding years.  In eight days Oleksandr Turchynov will become the president of Ukraine after civil protest, three months later Narendra Modi will become India’s prime minister after a national election, and a month after that Felipe VI will ascend to the throne as King of Spain after an abdication.  A month from now Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappears over Thailand and is never seen again, and in eight months Bangladesh will endure a nationwide blackout.   In the same month the One World Trade Center will finish construction in New York City thirteen years after September 11th and four months before WW1 will celebrate its centennial anniversary.  In a month Ellen DeGeneres will take a selfie with Hollywood stars during the Oscars and in five months Robin Williams will die, Germany will beat the host country in the Brazil World Cup and the Chinese Zodiac was the year of the Horse.  It was Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile turned ninety-years-old.

On this day today, a number is prescribed to a man, undeserving in terms of years lived and severely lacking in terms of sins committed in said life.  He saw a man at war, become nuclear, and walk on the moon.  Empires have fallen and new ones have risen, the planet scalped and the universe explored, all in the time his eyes have been blinking and his heart has been beating.  A man whose life crossed with that of every president of the Philippines from Aguinaldo to Marcos Jr. having been alive during the birth, life, and death of three of them.  Someone who’s been in every Filipino’s daily newspaper, radio, and TV station for the better part of the century is his life.  A person that spent the last 50 years switching and fleeing sides for his own self-interest as the nation slightly crumbles with every leap over.   Standing at 27.88 above the life expectancy rate in this country, he was the sinister architect and scapegoat of our darkest times, the unfortunate key  one of our brightest displays of hope, and one of the primary destabilizers of our dimming future.  Currently serving under the cabinet of the man who thirty years ago he was integral in his and his family’s ousting, the centenarian sits pretty atop his mound of blood-soaked coins.  A fact that surges within me a will to live that is completely a product of spite, a desire to live just long enough to be able to say for the first time that I do not share this world with him.  I don’t even know when that day comes if I’ll be happy that at least one even less evil will no longer inhale the oxygen I inhale, or sad that God permitted such an evil to fester in bliss for as long as he did.  I don’t even know if that day will ever come.  

It’s Valentine’s Day and Juan Ponce Enrile is one-hundred-years-old.