(UPDATE) FORMER Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile is currently in the ICU for pneumonia and has “slim chances of surviving,” Sen. Jinggoy Estrada said Tuesday. Estrada shared the news during the Senate session. “I have just received a very, very sad information, that our former colleague, former Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile is currently in the intensive care unit (ICU) of an undisclosed hospital, suffering from pneumonia,” Estrada told the plenary. “And I heard from a reliable source, a very, very reliable source, that he has slim chances of surviving. And I hope all of us here present can have a short prayer to be led by Sen. Joel Villanueva,” Estrada added. Enrile, 101, chief presidential legal counsel of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is on medical leave since October. Enrile appeared frail and strapped to hospital tubes when he attended remotely the promulgation of his acquittal in 15 graft cases linked to the multimillion peso pork barrel scam. Enrile was the longtime defense minister of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s father, former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr., serving in that post from January 1972, when martial law was declared, until February 1986, when he led a group of military officers who withdrew support to the latter following the fraud-marred snap presidential election. The breakaway triggered the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution that drove the Marcoses out of Malacañang. The former senator, who studied law at the University of the Philippines and Harvard Law School, served the first Marcos government as undersecretary, acting secretary and concurrently acting insurance commissioner and customs chief from 1966 to 1968. After that, he served as justice secretary until 1970. Enrile was appointed defense chief in early 1970 but his service was interrupted when he ran for senator in August 1971. He came back in early 1972 after he lost the race. An ambush on his convoy on the evening of Sept. 22, 1972, was Marcos Sr.’s final justification for declaring martial law. Enrile acted as martial law administrator for 14 years, until his dramatic break from Marcos Sr. In a press conference on Feb. 23, 1986, when he and then Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos announced their revolt, Enrile admitted that the ambush was faked, a claim he made in other interviews with foreign journalists. In his autobiography, however, Enrile contradicted his earlier statements and said the ambush was real, after all. As legislator and politician, Enrile served as member of the Interim Batasang Pambansa, the rubber stamp parliament, from 1978 to 1984, and in the regular Batasang Pambansa from 1984 to 1986. Enrile continued to hold the defense post under then-president Corazon Aquino until a falling out between him and the country’s new leader. He was fired in November 1986 for his alleged links to a coup plot dubbed “God Save the Queen.” He served four terms as senator (1987-1992, 1995-2001, 2004-2010, 2010-2016) and one term as Cagayan representative from 1992 to 1995. Enrile was Senate president from November 2008 until he resigned in June 2013. As the Senate leader, he presided over the impeachment court that found Chief Justice Renato Corona guilty in 2012 of dishonesty in declaring his statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth. In 2022, he was appointed as chief presidential legal counsel to the son of the president he helped overthrow.