After voicing her opposition to a Libingan ng mga Bayani burial for Ferdinand Marcos, Vice President Leni Robredo wants to personally discuss her stand with President Duterte, in hopes of talking him out of granting the wish of the late dictator’s family.
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Meanwhile, former Vice President Jejomar Binay said the Aquino administration missed the opportunity to lay the Marcos burial issue to rest when it did not act on his recommendation to bury him with military honors in Batac, Ilocos Norte which already had the approval of the Marcos family.
This week, Inquirer.net reported that Malacañang released a memo from Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, dated August 7, ordering the Armed Forces of the Philippines to draft the plans for the transport and interment ceremony of Marcos’ remains in the LNMB. The memo referred to a verbal order given by Duterte on July 11.
Malacanang has said Pres. Duterte will not stop public demonstration against his decision to allow the burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Marcos was elected in 1965 but was overthrown in 1986 after repressing dissent with torture and killings. “He was a soldier, we have to recognize that”, he said. Burial in the capital could take place in September.
The planned hero’s burial also demonstrates the impunity with which the Marcos family has flouted its agreement with then President Fidel V. Ramos, who, in 1992, allowed the dictator’s corpse to be brought home on three conditions: that it would be given the honors due a junior officer, that it would be buried immediately, and that it would be buried in his home province of Ilocos Norte.
Herrera is one of the 9,539 human rights victims who filed a class suit against Marcos in Hawaii. During martial law, the word “salvaging” came to mean summary execution, as mutilated bodies were dumped in public areas.
Almost 30,000 Filipinos have signed a petition urging Duterte to reconsider allowing Marcos’s burial in the cemetery, which the document said would be “an affront to the thousands of lives tortured and murdered during his reign”. Ibon Foundation said debts incurred under Marcos alone will be shouldered by Filipino taxpayers up to 2025.
The demonstration in Manila was held to protest the decision to re-inter Marcos, the dictator who ruled the Philippines with an iron fist for two-and-a-half decades. The dead dictator’s son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is a former senator and ran unsuccessfully for vice president in May. He also placed the country under martial law. His wife, Imelda, denies amassing wealth illegally.
Solid bronze caskets cost up to $30,000, Bayan said. “The wounds inflicted during the dark days of martial law (will) bleed anew”, the petition said.
People gather in heavy rain to protest President Rodrigo Duterte’s plans to move Ferdinand Marcos’s remains.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte during his first State of the Nation Address on July 25.
Preparations are underway for the Marcos burial.
“The President’s stance, remains firm: There is clarity in the regulations governing the late President Marcos’ burial”, Presidential Spokesman Martin Andanar said in a statement.
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“With thousands of Filipinos murdered and disappeared under his watch and billions of peoples’ money stolen during his regime, Marcos should have spent his last years in prison, and his death in an unmarked and desolate grave”, the petition said. “It’s so hard to imagine that he will be buried in the Heroes’ Cemetery”, former prisoner Danny Tang said.
