Juan Ponce Enrile has outlived Queen Elizabeth II

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Juan Ponce Enrile has outlived Queen Elizabeth II. 

The Royal Family has now entered a period of mourning.

Official engagements will be cancelled and Union flags will be flown at half-mast on royal residences, government buildings, across the Armed Forces and UK posts overseas.

Foreign leaders have paid tribute to the Queen, with US President Joe Biden recalling how she stood in solidarity with the US in their "darkest days" after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

To France's president, Emmanuel Macron, she was a "kind-hearted Queen" and "friend of France".

For Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister, the Queen was a constant in Canadians' lives and one of his "favourite people in the world".

Elizabeth's father became King George VI and, at age 10, Lilibet, as she was known in the family, became heir to the throne.

Within three years, Britain was at war with Nazi Germany. Elizabeth and her younger sister, Princess Margaret, spent much of wartime at Windsor Castle after their parents rejected suggestions they be evacuated to Canada.

After turning 18, Elizabeth spent five months with the Auxiliary Territorial Service and learned basic motor mechanic and driving skills. "I began to understand the esprit de corps that flourishes in the face of adversity," she recalled later.

Through the war, she exchanged letters with her third cousin, Philip, Prince of Greece, who was serving in the Royal Navy. Their romance blossomed and the couple married at Westminster Abbey on 20 November 1947, with the prince taking the title of Duke of Edinburgh.

She would later describe him as "my strength and stay" through 74 years of marriage, before his death in 2021, aged 99.

Her son King Charles III said the death of his beloved mother was a "moment of great sadness" for him and his family and that her loss would be "deeply felt" around the world.

He said: "We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished sovereign and a much-loved mother.

"I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world."

During the coming period, he said he and his family would be "comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which the Queen was so widely held".

The King and his wife, Camilla, now Queen Consort, will return to London on Friday, Buckingham Palace said.

Senior royals had gathered at Balmoral after the Queen's doctors became concerned about her health earlier in the day.

All the Queen's children travelled to Balmoral, near Aberdeen, after doctors placed the Queen under medical supervision.

Her grandson and now heir to the throne, Prince William, and his brother, Prince Harry, also gathered there.

Wikipedia:

Juan Valentin Furagganan Ponce Enrile Sr., CLH (born Juanito Furagganan; February 14, 1924), also referred to by his initials JPE, is a Filipino politician and lawyer known for his role in the administration of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos; his role in the failed coup that helped hasten the 1986 People Power Revolution and the ouster of Marcos; and his tenure in the Philippine legislature in the years after the revolution. In 2022, at the age of 98, he returned to government office as the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel in the administration of Bongbong Marcos.

Enrile was a protégé of President Ferdinand Marcos and served as Justice Secretary and Defense Minister during the Marcos administration. Enrile played a key role in the planning and documentary legwork for Martial Law, and was in charge of the Philippine Military during its implementation. Other roles in this period included Presidency of the Philippine Coconut Authority through which he gained control of the copra industry together with Danding Cojuangco, and being the general put in charge of logging in the Philippines under martial law - a period during which lumber exports were so extensive that the forest cover of the Philippines shrank until only 8% remained. By the 1980s, however, rising factionalism in the Marcos administration led to a reduction in Enrile's influence within the administration.

Enrile and General Fidel Ramos, along with several other military officers, withdrew their support for Marcos in February 1986. Before Marcos could put down the leaders of the failed coup, civilians who were already preparing mass protests in response to electoral fraud during the 1986 Philippine presidential election went en masse to Epifanio de los Santos Avenue near where Enrile and Ramos were encamped, preventing Marcos from assaulting the coup organizers. This was one of the key moments of the 1986 People Power Revolution that drove Marcos out of power and into exile. Enrile has continued to be a politician since then; he was the Senate President from November 2008 until his resignation on June 5, 2013. He remained a Senator until 2016, latterly as Minority Leader.