On Sunday, Malacañang directed the military to “undertake the necessary planning and preparations” for the interment of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, reigniting the explosive issue of a hero’s burial for the dictator.
Nothing wrong with that, according to President Duterte, who says it is within the law for a former president and soldier to be interred at the heroes’ cemetery in Taguig City. But a soldier who lied about his supposed war medals? A president who was ousted by his people?
The planned hero’s burial is said to be payback to the man Mr. Duterte considers instrumental in his political career. His father, Mr. Duterte has said many times, served in the Marcos Cabinet in the 1960s.
But a political debt should not becloud reason or be employed to dilute the spirit of the law. Neither should it get in the way of an acknowledgement of the sensibilities of bereaved families, for whom the belated honor represents the condonation of the evils of the Marcos regime and the loss of any chance to get justice for their dead, tortured and missing loved ones.
The planned hero’s burial also demonstrates the impunity with which the Marcos family has flouted its agreement with then President Fidel V. Ramos, who, in 1992, allowed the dictator’s corpse to be brought home on three conditions: that it would be given the honors due a junior officer, that it would be buried immediately, and that it would be buried in his home province of Ilocos Norte. Some 24 years later, not one of the conditions has been honored; the corpse (some say its replica) is still aboveground, encased in glass.
And while Mr. Duterte cites Republic Act No. 289 to back his plan, the law itself explicitly excludes Marcos when it states that the heroes’ cemetery is meant “to perpetuate the memory of all the Presidents of the Philippines, national heroes and patriots, for the inspiration and emulation of this generation and of generations still unborn.”
Does being named No. 2 among the world’s most corrupt leaders by Forbes magazine make one a source of inspiration for future generations?
In short, the Libingan, as Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said in a privilege speech, is “reserved for authentic heroes and patriots, or for those who are presumed to be heroes and patriots because their records do not document the contrary.”
Mr. Duterte says that being a former soldier, Marcos should be buried along with the more than 45,000 soldiers interred at the Libingan. But that point has been qualified as well, to include only those men in uniform who died in service of country. In fact, Marcos died in disgrace in the United States in 1989.
“A soldier disgraced” is how the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) describes Marcos; it says his record as a soldier during World War II was “fraught with myths, factual inconsistencies, and lies.”
Said the NHCP: Marcos “lied about receiving the US Medal of Honor, Silver Star, and Order of the Purple Heart,” a claim he made as early as 1945; his supposed guerrilla unit, Ang Mga Maharlika, was “never officially recognized, and neither was his leadership of it.” The NHCP further said: US officials “did not recognize Mr. Marcos’ rank promotion,” from major in 1944 to lieutenant colonel by 1947, and his actions as a soldier during WWII were likewise “officially called into question” by the US military.
“A doubtful record does not serve as sound, unassailable basis of historical recognition of any sort, let alone burial in a site intended, as its name suggests, for heroes,” the NHCP concluded.
But why get stuck in the past? Mr. Duterte asks, insisting that the issue of the Marcos burial should be laid to rest if only to unite and heal the nation and enable it to move on.
There are many answers to that question. Instead of unity, a hero’s burial for Marcos will deepen the unhealed wounds of the survivors and families of martial law victims, Vice President Leni Robredo said. It is yet another act of thievery, this time of the common soldier’s dignity and the country’s honor, said a member of a martial law victim’s family. It is “an undeserved reward,” said Congressman Lagman, whose own family lost a member to the Marcos apparat.
Burying Marcos at the heroes’ cemetery will “whitewash all the crimes he committed against the people and will send the wrong message to the world: that in the Philippines, crime pays,” said activist Boni Ilagan, one of the 35,000 tortured during the dictatorship.