In the long and tumultuous theater of Philippine politics, few figures have cast a shadow as long or as complex as Juan Ponce Enrile. His political career, spanning over half a century, has seen him at the center of the nation’s most seismic shifts: from martial law architect to coup plotter, from defense minister to Senate President. He is a man of a thousand reinventions, a survivor whose name is etched into the very fabric of the country’s modern history.

But behind the impenetrable veneer of the political titan, beyond the televised hearings and the backroom negotiations, lies a personal life just as dramatic and complex as his public one. For decades, his story has been inextricably linked to two powerful women who, in starkly different ways, have defined his personal legacy.

One is Christina Castañer Enrile, the Hispano-Filipina matriarch, his wife of 67 years. She is the woman who stood by him, a silent witness to history, who endured a lifetime of public service and private betrayals with a resilience that baffled a nation.

The other is Jessica Lucilla “Gigi” Reyes, his chief of staff, 30 years his junior. She was the brilliant, charming, and fiercely loyal employee who became his shadow in the Senate, his right hand, and, according to pervasive, decades-long rumors, the mistress who nearly shattered his “imperfect” but enduring marriage.

This is the story of those two women. It is a narrative of loyalty, infidelity, public scandal, and a complex web of relationships that blurred the lines between the personal, the professional, and the political, culminating in one of the biggest corruption cases in Philippine history.

Chapter 1: The Matriarch and The Marriage
On September 18, 1957, Juan Ponce Enrile married Christina Castañer. It was a union of note; she was a Hispano-Filipina with roots in Barcelona, and her mother, Maria del Pilar Garcia Granda I Perez de Tagle, would later serve as the Philippine Ambassador to the Holy See. They were a formidable couple, and together they had two children, Juan “Jack” Enrile and Katrina Ponce Enrile.

For decades, Christina was the consummate political wife: elegant, poised, and supportive, providing the stable home front required for a man whose career was a revolving door of national crises and political battles.

But their marriage was not a fairy tale. It was, as their daughter Katrina would later describe, “imperfect.”

The whispers of Enrile’s infidelities were a long-standing, open secret in Manila’s elite circles. But in 1998, the whispers became a roar. The private “imperfections” of their marriage exploded into a national scandal, and for the first time, the rumor had a name: Gigi Reyes.

According to a controversial 1998 report from the Chicago Tribune, Christina had finally had enough. She left her husband, citing his repeated infidelities, and the report specifically named Gigi, his employee and a woman 30 years his junior, as the cause.

The scandal was so public that Enrile, a man known for his guarded privacy, was forced to issue a press statement. He admitted to “marital problems” and discussions of separation before Christina left, but he flatly denied that Gigi Reyes was the reason. Their relationship, he insisted, was purely “official and professional.”

Christina left for the United States, intent on filing for divorce. The 41-year marriage was, by all accounts, over.

But it wasn’t.

She later withdrew the adultery case she had filed and returned to her husband. For years, the public was left to wonder what truly happened, what was said, and what kind of woman would return to such a public betrayal.

The answer, when it finally came, was more stunning than the scandal itself.

Chapter 2: The Notebook of 38 Names
Sixteen years later, in a 2014 interview on the program “Bawal ang Pasaway,” a 76-year-old Christina Enrile finally broke her silence. With breathtaking candor, she confirmed the nation’s long-held suspicions.

The affair between her husband and Gigi Reyes was true. It was the reason she fled to America to seek a divorce.

But the most shocking revelation was not about Gigi. It was about the 37 others who came before her.

Christina admitted, with a chilling matter-of-factness, that she had known about her husband’s infidelities for most of their marriage. In fact, she kept a notebook. In it, she recorded 38 instances of his betrayal.

For 56 years, she had stayed. When asked why, she explained that most women would have left, but she chose to remain. She had tolerated the previous affairs, which she described as fleeting.

But Gigi Reyes, she admitted, was different.

This wasn’t just another name for the notebook. “This one was different,” Christina stated, “because the relationship… it lasted long.”

It was the duration, the stability of this other relationship, that finally broke her resolve. It had crossed a line from a simple dalliance to a parallel commitment.

She also revealed what happened when she confronted Juan about the divorce. His response was not one of remorse. It was a cold, hard command. “Over my dead body,” he told her, “will I give you a divorce.”

And so, Christina stayed. She returned to the marriage, choosing to live with the knowledge of the 38 names, and the one name that mattered most. She only met Gigi Reyes once, she recalled, and the encounter was, in her words, “not nice.”

Their marriage would endure, a 67-year testament to a bond that, while celebrated by their daughter for overcoming challenges, remained, in the public eye, a profound and perplexing mystery of forgiveness, power, and imperfect commitment.

Chapter 3: The “Other” Woman
Who was Jessica Lucilla “Gigi” Reyes? To the public in 1998, she was a mysterious figure, a name in a headline. But in the halls of power, she was a force.

Thirty years younger than Enrile, she was described as disarmingly charming, possessing a high emotional quotient that made her a brilliant political operator. She was also a graduate of the prestigious UP College of Law, class of 1987. She joined Enrile’s law firm in 1988, and by the mid-1990s, she had become his chief of staff in the Senate.

She was not just a secretary. She was his gatekeeper, his strategist, his confidante, and his fiercest defender. Their professional bond was undeniable. Enrile, in turn, showed a “special fondness” for her, often seen in public hugging her or kissing her forehead. He valued her loyalty and professional competence above all else.

But was it more?

Enrile, for his part, was adamant. He consistently and vehemently denied any romantic relationship. In 2013, when pressed about it in a television interview following an insinuation by Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, Enrile was dismissive, almost mocking.

“If they’re implying that she’s my girlfriend,” the then-89-year-old senator scoffed, “well, I’m too old for that, my God.”

The denial was clear. But to the public, and to his wife, the relationship “that lasted long” was a foregone conclusion.

This complex, undefined, and powerful connection—whether purely professional, deeply personal, or both—would ultimately lead to their shared downfall.

Chapter 4: The Fall: Plunder and Betrayal
The relationship between Juan Ponce Enrile and Gigi Reyes, whatever its true nature, was thrust into its harshest and final spotlight by the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam, the “pork barrel” scandal that rocked the Philippines.

Both Enrile, as senator, and Reyes, as his chief of staff, were implicated. Plunder charges were filed. The accusation was that Reyes, as chief of staff, had signed documents and facilitated the release of Enrile’s PDAF to the fake NGOs of Janet Lim Napoles, the scam’s alleged mastermind.

Suddenly, their loyalty and connection were no longer a matter of private gossip; they were central to a national crime.

As the legal pressure mounted, the first cracks in their 25-year alliance appeared. Enrile’s lawyer issued a statement arguing that anyone who entered into illegal transactions did so “outside their authority.”

The implication was clear: if crimes were committed, they were committed by the staff, not for the senator.

For Gigi Reyes, this was the ultimate betrayal. From an unknown location, after having fled the country, she took to Facebook to express her anguish. She wrote of a “travesty and betrayal,” of her shock at being thrown under the bus by the very man to whom she had dedicated her entire professional life.

“I served him for 25 years,” she lamented, feeling abandoned and sacrificed.

The public spat was short-lived. Enrile, perhaps realizing the damage, quickly responded. “I am not out to betray any of my people,” he stated, attempting to mend the rift.

But the damage was done. The scandal had irrevocably intertwined their names.

Gigi Reyes eventually returned to the Philippines and surrendered. In July 2014, she was imprisoned.

Juan Ponce Enrile, despite facing the same non-bailable plunder charges, was granted release in 2015 on humanitarian grounds due to his advanced age and health.

Gigi Reyes, his loyal chief of staff, remained in jail.

Chapter 5: The Two Legacies
For nearly nine long, agonizing years, Gigi Reyes sat in a cell. Her life, her career, and her reputation were in ruins, all consumed by her service to her boss.

A former Senate staffer once mused that Gigi, whose own father had passed away, perhaps saw a father figure in Enrile, explaining her fierce, almost blind devotion. This theory was given weight by a message she once wrote to him: “Happy Father’s Day to the best boss anyone can have.”

In January 2023, after almost nine years, the Supreme Court approved her petition for habeas corpus, and Gigi Reyes was granted temporary release. She emerged from prison a different woman, her life a stark contrast to the one she had lived in the halls of power.

Meanwhile, Juan Ponce Enrile, now approaching his centennial, remains married to Christina. Their 67-year union, a complex tapestry of public service, shared history, and 38 recorded betrayals, continues. Enrile himself has expressed regret, not for the infidelities, but for the time his political career stole from his family.

The story of Juan Ponce Enrile’s life cannot be told without these two women.

Christina, the wife who held the family together with a notebook in one hand and forgiveness in the other, choosing to endure the “imperfect” for the sake of endurance itself.

And Gigi, the “best boss” who blurred every line, whose 25-year loyalty led her to a prison cell, a loyalist in a story where loyalty itself became the ultimate crime and punishment.

The matriarch and the chief of staff—two vastly different women, bound by one man, whose legacies are now forever entangled in the long, complex, and controversial history of Juan Ponce Enrile.