In allowing the burial of the late president Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (literally, “final resting place for heroes”), the Supreme Court took pains to stress the fact that he was never convicted of any crime. The cases filed against him were only civil in nature which in no way involved “moral turpitude.”
Ang babaw! Why the nine justices even bothered to bring that up as an argument is really sickening! So, in their eyes, Marcos was as clean as driven snow? My father, who was very vocal against the Marcoses during martial law, died in detention, without knowing what charges he was being held for.
History cannot be altered. Marcos and his whole family were kicked out of the country in 1986 because the people could no longer stomach their abuses and massive corruption. The bulk of the evidence (pieces of jewelry and other confiscated items worth hundreds of millions in dollars) is right there in the vault of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. That sovereign decision of the people to put an end to their kleptocracy was superior to and much higher than any judgment rendered by any court, including the so-called Supreme Court—which should have at least respected that. In the eyes of the world, Marcos was one of the biggest crooks who walked the face of the earth. Now the Supreme Court has just proclaimed him a “hero”? What a joke!
So what’s next? Proclaim his son, Bongbong Marcos, the winning vice presidential candidate, thereby putting him and all the Marcoses well on their way back to Malacañang? Lest it be forgotten, the Presidential Electoral Tribunal hearing his protest against sitting Vice President Leni Robredo is controlled by the same majority in the Supreme Court. They are the same eight justices (plus one now) who voted to grant bail to former senator Juan Ponce Enrile in the plunder case on “humanitarian” grounds, a rationale generally denounced as a brazen show of how far they would go to insult the people’s intelligence.
Enrile, by the way, was once Marcos’ errand boy when my father was put in jail and efforts of my family to seek an audience with him got nowhere.
With a Supreme Court like ours, heaven help us!
ROGELIO S. CANDELARIO, rodscan888@gmail.com