Myopic decision will only widen divisions

The Supreme Court has spoken on the Marcos burial. Its verdict: “While he (Marcos) was not all good, he was not pure evil either.” But who is all good but God?  And who is pure evil but the Devil?

I find all the arguments behind this crisp and hot decision of the Court truly and purely myopic. Laden with fallacies and technicalities, the ruling fails to win over dialectics. Instead of ending the divisiveness and controversies that have exacerbated the decades-old strife, the high court’s (mis)judgment would only further deepen and widen the “gaps” among our people; between righteousness and government; between heroes and scoundrels; between Ninoy and Marcos.

A high approval rating is not a license to play god.

What ushered Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to a landslide victory in the last presidential election, was not his bizarre campaign promises (e.g., the Marcos burial in heroes’ graveyard, eradicating the drug menace by killing thousand of drug “persons”) but the public clamor for change.

Marcos had a good side, but he is most certainly not a hero.

Don’t put political colors on justice, truth and history. They glow omnipotent on their own. Why sidestep the sacredness of the nation’s precepts and statutes? And why circumvent our cherished values, morals and sense of honor?

The late deposed president deserves to be enshrined in Batac, Ilocos Norte, or anywhere else outside (near, adjacent to or far from) the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The Philippines has 7,107 islands for the Marcos family to choose from wherein to bury their beloved Ferdinand. The purpose of their insistence on the matter, ambiguous though, is incredulous, and it must be the strongest reason the nation should oppose the Marcos burial in Libingan.

There is neither a law nor reason and goodness in allowing the remains of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos to be interred in a place where Filipino heroes and noble men (not abusers, plunderers and criminals) are immortalized. Otherwise, I would shudder at the thought and the fact that my father lies in the same graveyard.

President Duterte wants to unite the country.  Wonderful. But why he and his political allies are doing things that exacerbate the discord in an already fragmented people? What act or law can be greater than that which is being impelled and whipped up by the voice from within the deepest recesses of a human heart?

Marcos’ burial in Libingan is a desecration of a hallowed ground.

RENI M. VALENZUELA, [email protected]