WHEN news broke out on Friday, November 18 that former Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos has interred at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery), it lit a fire.
Public opposition is at high as more people mounting protests and unfurling banners saying that the former president “is no hero.”
For some, the LNMB hold’s the nation’s esteem and reverence for those who have fought for freedom and democracy. The tyrant deposed by the People Power Revolution does not deserve such honor. For them, the burial was a slap in the face the country’s beloved democracy, and of the human rights victims during the martial law period.
Today, various groups and organizations are marshaling support for rallies to denounce the notoriously callous decision by the Supreme Court allowing Marcos’s burial at LNMB. The decision was still subject to a motion for reconsideration.
Voting 9-5 last November 8, the high court put an end to the issue, dismissing the petition filed by human rights groups, and victims during the martial law from 1972 to 1981. Marcos died in exile in Hawaii in 1989, three years after the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution toppled his two-decade rule.
Albay Representative Edcel Lagman has pled the high court to order the exhumation of the remains of Marcos, saying that his burial was “premature, precipitate and irregular” on the basis that the decision allowing the burial “has not attained finality and was not executory.”
“The exhumation is imperative in order not to render moot and academic the petitioners’ forthcoming and seasonable motion/s for reconsideration, the resolution of which had been preempted by the precipitate burial in the wake of nationwide protests and cogent commentaries against the subject Decision of the [SC],” Lagman’s motion read.
Former Senator Bongbong Marcos has called for unity amidst the growing clamor to exhume his father remains.
“This was in keeping with his idea that he was but a soldier doing his duty, a citizen serving his country. We have waited 27 years to fulfill that wish that he left us with. But we are here today and we are able to grant him that wish,” the former senator said.
Pres. Rodrigo Duterte stood by his decision to allow the internment of the former president at LNMB.
“I have only two answers: He (Marcos) was a president, he was a soldier. His name appears on the record, it was recognized,” Duterte said.
And for those refuse to move on from this, the president has this to say: “You just have to live with your grief and that grief is hate.”
Because there have been an alleged high number of atrocities done under Marcos’s regime, this issue will remain hounded by higher public opposition.
In this charged atmosphere, the government should find a solution to address this contentious issue and provide a ground for peaceful resolution of political conflicts. (AJPress)
