“IT’S like heaven,” was how Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile described on Tuesday his more than a year of his hospital arrest at the Philippine National Police General Hospital in Quezon City.
“I’ve been incarcerated four times already, once by enemies of our country. That’s really hell. This time, it’s like heaven compared to what I went through,” he told reporters.
When asked if there was ever a time that he became emotional while in detention, Enrile said: “Why should I? I know that sooner or later the truth will come out. As a lawyer, I believe in our justice system.”
Last week, the Supreme Court allowed the senator to post bail after being in hospital arrest since July 2014 on plunder and graft charges filed against him in connection with the pork barrel scam.
Asked if he thinks that the truth is now starting to come out following the Court’s decision, Enrile said: “Not yet. I’m just given a temporary liberty. I have not started the trial yet.”
While in detention, the senator said, he did nothing but sleep, study and exercise.
“Kumakain ako ng hospital food. Masarap naman yung hospital food na dangit. Kumakain kami ng dangit, miswa, sotanghon,” he said.
Told by a reporter that he looks younger now, the 91-year-old senator said in jest: “Thank you for the compliment …pero wala nang asim.”
Enrile said he was “treated well” while in detained that he was even allowed to sleep under the sun.
To keep himself busy, he said, he also wrote “reflections” of his life.
“When I’m all alone and I think about the past, the present and the future and many things,” he said. He said he would leave this “narrative” to his daughter and it would be up to her whether to publish it later or just throw it in a waste basket.
Enrile said among those who frequently visited him while he was detained were former President Fidel Ramos and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas.
“Siguro si Mar must have been there about three times,” he said but refused to say whether they talked about politics during his visits.
“No comment…He (Roxas) just visited me,” he said.