We have set Aug. 21 as a holiday to honor the martyrdom of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. whose body rests in a private cemetery. It was his family’s self-effacing choice to bury him there among ordinary people for whose sake he sacrificed his life.
The (wax?) body of his tormentor — and the people’s — rests ingloriously in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Thanks to a Supreme Court beholden to the family of the late tyrant, Ferdinand E. Marcos has been virtually proclaimed a “hero!”
The Supreme Court has thus spoken — it is now the “law of the land!” Can an annual holiday to “honor” that stinking “hero” be farfetched?
And we now might want to rethink and erase that ridiculous saying etched in some monuments around the country: “The Filipino is worth dying for,” and replace it with an apt, more honest-to-goodness one: “The Filipinos are a crazy people,” or so the Supreme Court thinks!
JEREMIAS H. TOBIAS jeremhech@gmail.com