By Dioscoro Nuñez III
History does not bury its controversies with the dead. It often re-works them. Ferdinand Marcos. Margaret Thatcher. Augusto Pinochet. Richard Nixon. Muammar Gaddafi. Pol Pot. Henry Kissinger. These names, once thunderous with power and polarizing in life, continue to reverberate through the public imagination long after their passing. They were architects of regimes, symbols of repression, or defenders of order, depending on who tells the story. Yet a curious transformation often follows their deaths: the sharpness of public judgment softens. Obituaries speak of “complex legacies.” Former critics fall into nonchalance. Supporters grow louder. And a nation, once divided in opinion, begins to rewrite the story.
Why does this happen? Why do societies, even those wounded by a public figure’s decisions, sometimes revise their collective memory upon that person’s death? Two psychological forces offer insight: the Terror Management Theory and the Cognitive Dissonance Reduction.
The Terror Management Theory (TMT) suggests that human beings, when confronted with the reality of death, seek comfort in cultural worldviews and symbols that offer a sense of permanence. The death of a public figure, especially one tied to a nation’s history, triggers what psychologists call “mortality salience,” a heightened awareness of our own mortality. In response, people cling to narratives that affirm continuity. Even if the deceased was divisive, their life may be reframed as part of a larger national story. Their flaws are contextualized, their achievements emphasized. The goal is not to absolve, but to stabilize: to make sense of death by anchoring it in meaning.
In the case of Juan Ponce Enrile, who passed away on November 13, 2025, at the age of 101, this impulse to reframe is already unfolding. Enrile was a towering figure in Philippine politics, both revered and reviled. He was the architect of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos Sr., a defector during the 1986 People Power Revolution, a Senate president, and most recently, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel under Marcos Jr. His death marks the end of a political career that spanned nearly eight decades, touching every major chapter of modern Philippine history.
For many Filipinos, Enrile’s passing evokes not just memories of his actions, but reflections on the nation’s own journey. His longevity, his survival through shifting regimes, and his unapologetic presence in the halls of power make him a symbol of both endurance and impunity. And now, in death, he becomes a mirror, forcing the public to confront its own contradictions.
Some will mourn. Others will remember. Still others will revise. This is the psychological terrain of posthumous reckoning. Terror Management Theory tells us that we seek meaning in death, and so we may elevate Enrile as a historical fixture, a man who “saw it all.”
Cognitive Dissonance, on the other hand, urges us to resolve the discomfort of his legacy, perhaps by softening our judgments, or by compartmentalizing his sins and virtues.
But the danger lies in forgetting too much. In mythologizing the man, we risk erasing the pain of martial law victims, the erosion of democratic norms, and the lessons that history demands we carry forward. To honor the dead is human. To remember truthfully is civic.
Juan Ponce Enrile’s death is not just the end of a life; it is a test of memory. Will we re-write, romanticize, or reckon? The answer will shape not only how we remember him, but how we understand ourselves. Because when a figure so deeply woven into the fabric of national history dies, the public is not merely reacting to a personal loss; it is negotiating the meaning of its own past. The temptation to soften, to mythologize, to find closure is strong. It offers relief from the discomfort of contradiction: that a man can be both brilliant and complicit, both survivor and enabler, both patriot and power broker.
But memory is not just a balm; it is a responsibility. To remember truthfully is to resist the erasure of pain, the dilution of accountability, and the seduction of nostalgia. It means honoring the victims of martial law not only in words, but in the integrity of our historical judgment. It means teaching future generations that legacy is not earned by longevity alone, but by the moral weight of one’s choices.
And so, as tributes rise and silence falls, the question remains: will we allow death to cleanse the record, or will we hold fast to the complexity of truth? In the end, how we remember Juan Ponce Enrile will reveal more about our civic maturity than about the man himself. Because the reckoning is not his; it is ours.
