 Almost 19,000 sign petition vs burying Marcos at Libingan ng mga Bayani
The online news portal of TV5
MANILA - Close to 19,000 people have signed a petition to ask incoming President Rodrigo Duterte to not push through with his plan to have the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
The petition “No to Burying Marcos in Heroes’ Cemetery” was created by Dolly De Leon of Mandaluyong City last week on advocacy platform Change.org. Find it on this link: chn.ge/1RDP8io.
The petition stressed that burying the dictator who ruled for two decades, including nine years under martial law, was “an affront to the thousands of lives tortured and murdered during his reign.”
It stressed that a hero was one who did not take away freedom; rather, he or she “campaigns for it and fights for its survival for the sake of others.”
“Laying (Marcos) to rest at the Heroes’ Cemetery is a disdainful act that will send a message to the future of our nation – our children – that the world we live in rewards forceful and violent hands,” the petition said.
It also outlined six reasons why Marcos should not be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
First, it cited Duterte as saying that the issue of Marcos’s burial had long been divisive. In fact, Duterte said in a recent interview, “I am sure that (the burial) would erase from amongst our people one hatred.”
The petition said that the reason for the division was not the burial, and that the latter would even “further sever the opportunity for unity, since this is an injustice to the victims of Martial Law and the families they left behind.”
According to the petition, 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed under Martial Law, which Marcos proclaimed in 1972.
The second reason, the petition said, was that the United States Army said that Marcos’s claims that he had led a guerrilla resistance unit during the Japanese occupation were “fraudulent” and “'absurd.”
The third reason, the petition said, that Marcos was not being heroic when he fabricated stories about his war accomplishment.
In addition, the petition said, Marcos’s “gross plunder and mass murder trumps his status as a soldier.”
“Serving one’s country in war does not warrant heroism if they place that same country in ruin. Foreign debt increased from $355 million in 1962 to $28.3 billion in 1986. The peso value to the dollar decreased from 3.90 in 1966 to 20.53 in 1986,” the petition explained.
The petition’s fifth reason for not wanting Marcos to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani was because not all soldiers were buried there.
“Burying him there will label him a hero whether he was a Philippine soldier or not,” the petition said.
Finally, the petition cited the cemetery’s regulations as saying, “Those who were dishonorably separated, reverted, or discharged from the service, and those who were convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude cannot be buried at the cemetery.”
“Marcos was ousted from power. On these grounds alone, he is not qualified. Ferdinand E. Marcos is not a hero. Only heroes are buried in the Heroes’ Cemetery as the name so literally states,” the petition said.
Duterte nevertheless maintained that he would not change his mind.
“Patay na ‘yung tao. Anong gusto ninyo? You want the cadaver to be burnt? Would that satisfy you?” he said in a press conference, addressing those opposed to his decision.
He earlier said that he was okay with any date for Marcos’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, including the latter’s birthday in September.
“I will allow the burial of President Marcos sa Libingan ng mga Bayani, not because he is a hero, kung ayaw nila ng iba na ‘yun, but because he was a Filipino soldier, period,” Duterte reasoned.
Duterte’s own mother, Soledad, had helped organize protest rallies for the pro-Aquino movement before the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986.
Meanwhile, Senator Bongbong Marcos had thanked Duterte for his statement, saying on his Facebook page that his family always maintained that it was the former president’s right under the law to be buried there being a former soldier and president.
“Our campaign has always been toward achieving unity to move the country forward,” said the losing vice-presidential candidate. “And it is this kind of pronouncement that we hope could end the decades of divisiveness that have been imposed upon us by our leaders.”
For his part, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo opposed the plan to bury former President Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani even though his clan had not returned the billions of money stolen from the government coffers during his regime.
The total amount of the ill-gotten wealth acquired by then President Marcos is reportedly between $5 and $10 billion.
The late Jovito Salonga, former chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), said in his book Presidential Plunder: The Quest for the Marcos Ill-Gotten Wealth, that as of January 14, 1987, “virtually all of the wealth claimed by Mrs. (Imelda) Marcos, allegedly amounting to around 500 billion pesos, had been sequestered during my one-year assignment, subject to final judicial determination of their ownership.”
(This P500 billion pesos is now equivalent to $10.8 billion, with the present dollar-peso exchange rate at $1 = P46.16 and P1 = $0.022. Meanwhile, the exchange rate in 1987 was $1 = P20.57, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas: bit.ly/1MC7Snb.)
Marcos herself admitted to their vast properties during martial rule. She told The Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1998, “We practically own everything in the Philippines—from electricity, telecommunications, airline, banking, beer and tobacco, newspaper publishing, television stations, shipping, oil and mining, hotels and beach resorts, down to coconut milling, small farms, real estate and insurance.”
In addition, she also revealed in an interview with the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse in 1998 that more money had yet to be discovered.
“There is more money that the government is not yet aware of, but for the time being, I can admit that there is only $800 million kept in various international banks,” she said.
“Papaano ma-u-unite na marami naman tutol dito? Mas lalong ma-di-divide ang country,” Pabillo said. “Palaging hindi nabibigyan ng katarungan ang mga biktima.”
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