THE remains of the deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos was schemingly buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) last Friday, despite a motion for reconsideration pending in the Supreme Court.
The highest court of the land decided in favor of President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to allow the burial of Marcos in the National Heroes’ Cemetery, contending that Marcos was a former president, soldier, legislator who, by law, deserved to be laid to rest in the Libingan. Duterte said people should accept this, forgive, so the country can unite and move forward and unite.
Once the news about the burial spread, Filipinos protested in different parts of the world, denouncing the burial. They said this is an insult to the real heroes who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in offering their lives for the country.
Marcos, on the other hand, had been deposed via the People Power Revolution in 1986, as the Filipinos’ way of putting an end to all the corruption and human rights violations he and his administration committed while in power. Burying Marcos in the Libingan, they contend, was a desperate deplorable attempt to rewrite history.
Anti-Marcos protesters even asked the Supreme Court to allow the remains of the late dictator to be exhumed; some warned that they would do so on their own nevertheless in the name of justice for those who had been victims of the Marcos dictatorship.
Filipinos in America, even among some who voted for Duterte, had been vocal about Marcos’s burial in the Libingan.
The Filipino Channel’s daily newscast “Balitang America” asked its viewers in an online poll: Do you agree that Marcos’es hero’s burial will start to heal the division among Filipinos?
Only 24 percent said YES. They said this will finally bring this issue to rest.
An overwhelming majority — 76 percent — said NO. They contended that wounds have been cut too deep when it comes to the Marcoses. They said the former dictator’s hero’s burial is an issue that will be argued for generations to come.
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
