Faked or staged: The impression management of Juan Ponce Enrile

(Updated Oct. 19, 9:49 a.m.) - It’s been reported that Juan Ponce Enrile admitted at a press conference with Fidel Ramos in February 1986 that the alleged plot to assassinate him on September 21, 1972 was a fake ambush used by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos as one of the justifications for martial rule.

 

However 40 years later, in an interview with news anchor Howie Severino on GMA News TV program “News To Go,” the former Defense Minister, who is also one of the prime architects of Marcos’ dictatorship, reiterated his claim that the 1972 ambush was not faked but staged. It was a controversial claim he made in his newly launched book, "Juan Ponce Enrile: A Memoir,” and he went on to qualify the incident in this manner: "I said, the ambush was staged, but I did not say who staged it. I did not say that I staged it." 

 

But really? Faked or staged? Does it matter? Are they not the same?

 

Apparently, it does to Mr. Enrile. And probably, he does make perfect sense.

 

Mr. Enrile’s preference of a staged ambush over a faked ambush is an interesting case for me, at least sociologically. I have a sense that in general we like to avoid being labeled fake because the idea of fakeness may evoke a personal defect and a sense of moral phoniness. Staging on one hand, may signify something different, like an amoral, rational, and calculative social act aimed at managing appearances.

 

The great micro-sociologist Erving Goffman who actually uses the terminology in studying human behavior, has an instructive insight. He suggests that the day-to-day presentation of self has much in common with being on-stage or in a dramatic production. Social interaction, like a theater, has a "front stage" and a "back stage". The former is where we perform specific roles that we want the audience to see while the latter is where we do not want the audience to see and where we are not required to perform at all.

 

In fact, Goffman considers front staging as an important strategy not only in controlling the impression we give to others, but also from rescuing ourselves from a potential or actual loss of face, let’s say, derived from a mark of social disgrace or a spoiled identity. For example, in San Francisco, California even panhandlers creatively stage themselves with signs such as: “Will work for food” or “I’m not going to tell you a lie, I need money for alcohol” to others and hoping somehow of getting a favorable response from passersby.

 

The reality is, everyone uses it, especially those who are in a position of power.

 

In the case of Mr. Enrile, we might ordinarily consider his memoir as a form of front staging rather than back staging. It is an account of what he wants us not to see rather than what he wants us to see.

 

Understandably, no one wants to write a memoir that generally presents the self in ways that are not favorable to one’s self-interest and self-image. After all, no person in his/her right mind wants to show the mess and chaos of the back stage or air one’s dirty laundry in public, so to speak.

 

Mr. Enrile is a sly and intelligent man who cannot be underestimated in his effort to reinvent himself. Not only is his book selling like “hotcakes” but one of my friends suspects, “the book may have been shelved in both fiction and non-fiction book sections.” But to have PNoy and Imelda as part of the front staging in his book launching is simply mind-boggling. Gathering foes and enemies, perpetrators and victims in a campfire singing “Kumbaya” while devastatingly debauch is quite a feat.

 

Mr. Enrile may be successful in his impression management, but can he now gain a moral standing from those who suffered during the dark days of dictatorship? I am sure he is counting on that possibility too. How can he not? Even PNoy, the son of a martyr, may now be a false standard on who we look up on this matter of national memory. I dread the thought that we are in danger of forgetting.

 

The unfortunate thing about this controversy is the fact that Mr. Enrile could have closed this matter without a quibble because of the graciousness that the aftermath of EDSA I bestowed upon him.

 

I am befuddled why people can't be gracious in return. As the Good Ole Book reminds us: "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his own soul?"

 

But then again, if the octogenarian senator’s conscience is clear and he is telling the truth, none of this should matter anymore.