Human rights group Sanlakas expressed yesterday this possibility, as it lamented both the decision of the Supreme Court and Pres. Duterte’s lack of response to objections to Marcos’ burial at the Libingan.
Sanlakas secretary general Aaron Pedrosa said “Pres. Duterte cannot simply reduce the issue to a clash of political clans, especially if he is aware of the injustices and crimes committed by the Marcos dictatorship.”
He was reacting to Duterte’s statement that the burial issue was a mere ‘fight between two families.’
“The Aquinos were not the only victims of Martial Law, nor are they the ones leading the condemnation of a hero’s burial for the late dictator,” said Pedrosa.
Pedrosa reminded Duterte that “under Marcos’s rule, 3,240 were killed, more than 70,000 were imprisoned, 34,000 people were tortured and 254 people were victimized by enforced disappearances.”
He warned that amid the controversy, the “last word” on the issue could now rest in the hands of the Filipino people “who have every right to resist any attempt to deodorize the atrocities committed by Marcos.”
“We demonstrated this when we ousted the dictatorship in 1986,” he noted.
Pedrosa said “a hero’s burial for Marcos will not give closure to the families and the memory of those who were denied dignity and rights under his tyranny. Nor will it absolve the present and future generations of the 26.7 billion-dollar debt we will be paying as late as 2025, almost forty years after Marcos’s regime ended.”
Sanlakas also decried the failure of “all branches of government to deny a hero’s burial for the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos,” after the Senate ignored a resolution against Marcos’s internment at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani, a few days after the Supreme Court junked all petitions to declare the burial unconstitutional.
“It seems as if there is unity among Marcos apologists in all branches of government to subdue the cry for justice from the part of the Martial Law victims and citizens who are aware of the corruption and abuse the tyrant Marcos has enjoyed during his rule,” said Pedrosa.
He stressed that “there is no law compelling Duterte to give a hero’s burial to the dictator. Since the Court also ruled that the issue was a political question, the President still has the power to cancel or retract his order.”
“It is enough for the President to look at the backlash caused by his order to see that the Marcos burial will not bring closure and healing to the Philippines. On the contrary, the issue has rubbed salt on the wounds of a people subjected to the horrors of Martial Law and tyrannical rule under Marcos,” said Pedrosa.
“The Supreme Court did a Pontius Pilate in its pro-Marcos decision. Far from upholding the Constitution – the byproduct of the peoples uprising against the Marcos dictatorship – the Supreme Court hid behind legalese that denied historical facts and the intent of the fundamental law.,” Pedrosa also said.
