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Cowardly, protesters call sneaky Marcos burial

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by Abril Layad B. Ayroso

“COWARDLY and like a thief in the night,” is how enraged Martial Law victims and progressive organizations called the sneaky burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) last November 18.

Progressive groups launched several simultaneous protests all over Metro Manila in opposition to the noontime and secretive burial of the late dictator mere days after the Supreme Court struck down several petitions against Marcos’ internment at the LNMB.

Before the progressive groups began their “Black Friday” protests starting at 12 noon, they received word that Marcos’ corpse had been flown in from Batac, Ilocos Norte to the LNMB in what Marcos “loyalists” explained was a private burial of the dictator who died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.

They also learned that Marcos had been given military honors, including a 21-gun salute.

In addition to the secrecy, the protesters also spoke against how rushed the burial was, as it happened before any of the petitioners against the burial could file their planned motion for reconsideration.

“This is exactly the Marcoses’ style.  The things they do are all either exaggeratedly grand or secret,” said Bonifacio Ilagan, spokesperson for the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses in Malacanang (CARMMA).

Ilagan compared  the secrecy of the burial to Marcos’ declaration of martial law which took Filipinos by surprise.

“One night in 1972, Marcos declared martial law and stole whatever democracy existed in the Philippines. The media described the declaration the same way we do his burial: like a thief in the night,” Ilagan said.

Marcos rehabilitation

The protesters said they fear that the Marcos clan will take advantage of their patriarch’s burial at the LNMB to rehabilitate their name and the distortion of history in their favor.

“This betrayal is the realization of the Marcos clan’s plot to bury the dictator at the LNMB and give honor to a traitor. It is a step towards the perversion of history,” Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary-general Renato Reyes said.

“No matter how you look at it, this burial marks the official rehabilitation of their name. They can now say that the government itself recognizes the tyrant as a hero, thanks to the decision of the SC and the whims of President Rodrigo Duterte,” Ilagan said

Ilagan also said that the Marcoses would try to use the burial as political capital for the dictator’s son, Ferdinand Jr., to file his candidacy in the next presidential elections, which he feared would further deodorize martial law abuses.

The struggle continues

Progressive groups vowed to bring the fight to the streets.

“The rushing of the burial proves that the Marcoses and their cronies are insecure and afraid of the people and their struggle,” Ilagan said.

“The fight to bring the dictator, his family and all oppressors of the Philippines to justice is still very much alive,” Reyes added.

The youth also pronounced support for the struggle against the rehabilitation of the Marcoses.

“Today, we grieve for this act of historical revisionism. We shall continue to intensify our unity as a nation to end the culture of impunity,” said Jose Mari Callueng, national president of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP).

“We young people may not have been alive during Martial Law, but that does not mean we do not have the right to fight against the Marcoses. After all, we suffer many of the sins of martial law, such as education and health being peddled for profit,” Al Omaga, chairperson of Anakbayan UP – Manila, for his part, said.

“Our actions are proof enough that this historical revisionism will not be accepted. The participation of the youth in our protests is proof that the truth shall be not forgotten,” Reyes said.

Thousands of University of the Philippines-Diliman, Ateneo de Manila University and Miriam College staged a late afternoon protest along Katipunan Avenue before proceeding to the EDSA Shrine in the evening.

UP-Manila and St. Scholastica’s College-Manila also reportedly held protest actions in opposition to the burial. #

 

Martial Law victims decry surreptitious Marcos burial at LNMB

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While former President Ferdinand Marcos was being buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, Martial Law victims massed up at the Philcoa in Quezon City to protest what they called a surreptitious internment last November 18.

The protesters said the burial was in keeping with the nature of the Marcos dictatorship which they claim may be contemptuous of the law as it the move did not event allow the petitioners against the burial the chance to file their motion for reconsideration.

The LNMB was kept secret by the Marcos family even from their supporters to keep it “private and solemn.” Read more

High Court’s Marcos burial decision dismays Martial Law victims

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By April Layad B. Ayroso

PROGRESSIVE organizations expressed dismay at the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss the six petitions against the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB).

The justices of the SC voted 9-5 in favor of dismissing the petitions against the order of President Rodrigo Duterte to have the late strongman buried at the LNMB 27 years after his death in exile in Hawaii.

Associate Justices Arturo Brion, Presbitero Velasco Jr, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano del Castillo, Jose Perez, Teresita de Castro, Jose Mendoza, and Estela Perlas-Bernabe voted in favor of Marcos’ burial at the LNMB.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, and Associate Justices Marvic Leonen, Francis Jardeleza, and Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa meanwhile dissented.

Associate Justice Bienvenido Reyes inhibited from the case.

The high court also voted to lift the status quo ante order the suspended the burial.

According to SC spokesperson Theodore Te, some of the reasons cited by the justices who voted in favor of the burial were the lack of grave abuse of discretion on the part of Duterte in ordering the burial of Marcos; the absence of a law prohibiting the burial; the president having the power to decide on the use of land within the public domain including the LNMB; Marcos being a former commander-in-chief, former soldier and former secretary of national defense; Marcos not being dishonorably discharged in military terms; and Marcos not having been convicted by any final judgment; and that all the cases brought up by petitioners were all civil in nature.

“History was altered today,” Atty. Neri Colmenares, one of the petitioners, for his part, said.

“The decision is sad, because it makes liars out of the victims. If the torturer was a hero, what does that make of us? What does that make the millions of people who went to EDSA in 1986 to overthrow a ‘hero’? What does that make the international community who came out and helped the Filipino people overthrow a dictator?” Colmenares said.

“This is a horrible and a tragic ending to one of the darkest chapters in Philippine history, as Marcos should be remembered as a dictator, not a her.  And the victims should be remembered for their sacrifices. Now the SC is saying that that is not the case, that all of our decisions have not been correct,” he added.

Colmenares reiterated his case against the burial, saying that Marcos’ burial stems from an AFP regulation, not the law, as well as Republic Act 289, which states that those buried at LNMB must be worthy of “inspiration and emulation for this generation and generations still unborn.”

“Unless the SC explicitly says that Marcos is worthy of inspiration and emulation, he is disqualified from being buried at the Libingan,” he said.

“An AFP regulation cannot trump the Constitution – which is in nature, anti-Marcos,” Colmenares said.

Colmenares also addressed claims that the burial will bring healing to the country.

“This will not bring about reconciliation and closure. This will only inflame the people and their animosity. We were victims of torture, but no one has been punished for our suffering,” he said.

“It is easy to tell someone to forgive and forget, but a victim cannot be forced to shoulder the burden of forgetting if nobody has been held accountable and punished,” Colmenares added.

Opposition

The progressives earlier trooped to the gates of the Supreme Court to reiterate their opposition to the burial.

During their program, speakers elaborated on Marcos’s sins against the Filipino people and explained why the dictator does not deserve to be honored.

“He shut down the press. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus and gave the military the power to kill, abduct and torture,” Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) national coordinator Fr. Dionito Cavillas said.

“He is the number one human rights violator. Most of the victims have yet to see an inkling of justice,” Cabillas, citing thousands of victims of human rights violations under the Marcos regime, said.

Cabillas also called out the Marcos clan for the plunder of the Philippine economy and contradicting the claims of their loyalists that their reign constituted the “golden years of the Philippines.”

“Marcos was responsible for the country’s enormous debt to the IMF-World bank. He made a lot of money from all the debts and public funds he stole during his regime,” Cabillas said.

“Poverty just got worse for most of us,” he added.

The protesters spoke of and condemned the legacy “contractualization, corruption, privatization, cronyism, and state fascism.”

Not over yet

Despite the decision, however, the protesters emphasized that they will not stop in their struggle for justice.

Colmenares said that there is still hope in stopping the burial.

“The battle is not finished. It will continue with more fervor. We still have time to file a motion for reconsideration. We ask the administration to respect our due process rights as petitioners and not bury Marcos right away. We might still win this,” he said.

Colmenares added that he hoped Duterte will change his mind about burying Marcos.

“He cannot achieve his objectives with the burial. This is not healing ; this is adding insult to injury.  When there has been no justice for the victims and the Marcoses do not even admit that there were human rights violations during Martial Law,” he said.

“So many of our countrymen are not aware of the truth. We cannot stop our fight while that is the case,” Colmenares added.

Organizations led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan said during their protest that, win or lose, they will continue to fight until justice is served.

“We who are still alive will never forget the atrocities under the US-backed Marcos dictatorship – enforced disappearances, torture, illegal arrests and detention, summary killings and mass displacement of entire communities,” Bayan chairperson Carol Araullo said in a press statement.

“Generations of our people continue to suffer the effects of 14 years of destruction of the national economy,” Araullo said.

 

SC decision on Marcos burial disgusting, survivors say

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Showing disgust over the Supreme Court decision favoring the burial of former Pres. Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, Martial Law victims took to the streets in protest on November 8, 2016.

Marcos loyalists also took the streets opposite the protesters. Read more

Martial Law victims condemn SC decision allowing Marcos burial at ‘heroes’ cemetery’

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Condemnation of the Supreme Court decision junking petitions opposing the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Cemetery of Heroes came swift from the victims and survivors of the late strongman’s Martial Law.

Hundreds gathered at the University of the Philippines on the night the decision was officially announced, vowing to continue their campaign to have Marcos remembered as a human rights violator. Read more

Scholasticans learn about Martial Law from victim

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St. Scholastica’s College-Manila students learned about the atrocities of Ferdinand Marcos’s Martial Law from former political detainee and torture victim Bonifacio Ilagan in a forum last October 26.

Organized by Bulatlat.com as part of its education series, the forum was aimed at informing younger generations of the dangers of romanticizing the late strongman’s rule.

Watch parts of Ilagan’s testimonial in this video. Read more

Martial Law activists call on youth to remember horrors of dictatorship

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PROGRESSIVE groups marched to Mendiola last Wednesday, September 21, to mark the 44th year since dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law and to press their opposition to talk of another military rule in the country.

Martial Law survivors and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultants narrated their torture under Martial Law and called for the release of current political prisoners numbering more than 500.

First Quarter Storm Movement chairperson Bonifacio Ilagan said that tyranny has not been completely eliminated by the ouster of Marcos in 1986. Read more

‘Never again to Martial Law’ survivors say

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SURVIVORS of Martial Law marched to Mendiola last September 21 to press their demand for justice on the 44th anniversary of its declaration.

They were joined by recently-released National Democratic Front of the Philippines peace consultants who themselves were victims of the Marcos dictatorship.

The activists also reiterated their opposition to the burial of the late dictator at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Read more

Ang Libing, a skit on the planned burial of Marcos at the ‘heroes’ cemetery

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Karatula, originally the cultural group of Kabataang Makabayan (KM), performs the short skit “Ang Libing” by Bonifacio P. Ilagan at forums and protest actions.

A celebrated playwright, Ilagan was one of the earliest members of KM. He was arrested and tortured during Marcos’s Martial Law. His sister Rizalina was abducted by Marcos’s troops in the 1970s and remains missing to this day.

Ilagan is a convener of the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses in Malacanang (CARMMA). Read more

Martial Law victims press call vs Marcos at Libingan ng mga Bayani

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HUMAN RIGHTS groups held another rally in front of the Supreme Court (SC) last September 7 during the second round of oral arguments on the petition against the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB).

The rally was in support of the petitioners and their lawyers who said that instead of healing, the Rodrigo Duterte government’s plan to bury the late dictator at the so-called cemetery of heroes would open old wounds.

Bonifacio Ilagan, Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacanang (CARMMA) convenor, questioned the use of the term “healing” on the issue of Marcos’ burial at the LNMB.

“Whose wounds are going to be healed? The victims are scarred. Will their scars be healed through Marcos’ burial? I don’t think so,” he said.

“If we want healing, then give Martial Law victims justice,” Ilagan said.

“Even if they say that a burial is a simple thing, it means a lot to us, because it would mean the rehabilitation of the Marcoses and the reversal of our history,” he added.

The group Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) also said it is important not to allow Marcos, his heirs and cronies to escape punishment.

“As long as the Marcoses remain unpunished for their crimes, the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the LNMB will only add to our pain, as it allows for the warping of the truth and the recognition of Marcos as a hero,” the group said.

More than a hundred Marcos “loyalists” held their own rally farther down Padre Faura Street.

Rally at the Supreme Court protesting Marcos' burial at the LNMB revives old slogans against the former president.

Rally at the Supreme Court protesting Marcos’ burial at the LNMB revives old slogans against the former president.

No burial yet

Before the Supreme Court en banc, Solicitor General Jose Calida and Marcos family lawyer Hyacinth Rafael-Antonio defended Marcos’ ‘right’ to burial at the LNMB.

Calida said that the government does not see any law violated by Duterte’s plan and, in turn, cited Armed Forces of the Philippines Regulation No. 161-375 allowing soldiers, commanders in chief and war veterans burial at the LNMB.

Calida and Rafael-Antonio said the burial would not affect the issue of compensation of the victims of Marcos’ Martial Law.

Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, however, found fault with Calida and Rafael-Antonio’s argument that Marcos would be buried only because he was a president and a soldier.

Leonon also questioned their treatment of Marcos the President and Marcos the soldier as two different people.

“Which part of Marcos is President?  Which part is being accused by the victims of human rights violations? Why is it that government wishes to take only (a) part of Marcos’ life and use it as a justification to bury him in the LNMB?” Leonen asked.

Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, for her part, spoke against the potential use of public funds for the burial, saying that public funds should only be used for public purposes.

Calida denied that public funds would be used and said that Marcos would receive “simple graveyard military honors.”

Calida added that the public purpose would be Duterte’s policy of healing and reconciliation.

But Sereno countered Calida, saying, “There is a campaign promise.  That is a political purpose. That is not a defined public purpose.  And public money cannot be used to fulfil a political promise.”

At the end of the hearing, the SC announced a status quo ante order to October 18, preventing Marcos’ planned burial in the LNMB on September 18.# (By Abril Layad B. Ayroso)