What lies beyond Marcos burial
In our new “Berdugong Lipunan,” it’s safer to cower than to speak for truth and freedom, but I owe this to the spirit of Edsa and the real heroes, old and young, who defied and will be defying the plague of dictatorship.
When President Duterte flaunted Imee Marcos as a financier of his successful presidential run, he made it appear that the Marcos burial issue was “all about political payback.” Protesters assailed the “payback” instead of the deeper Marcosian schemes—e.g., the ploy to favorably limelight dictators to condition people’s minds to welcome the rise of another one: Marcos as the best ever Philippine president, and Hitler’s methods as appropriate.
Organized EJKs (extrajudicial killings) abound, and dissenters are being demolished by an army of trolls, hackers, butchers and state agents, as government pivots towards authoritarian superpowers with higher disregard for human rights. Even Du30’s recent poker-faced downplay of martial law as a bugaboo of the “mga taga Maynila” reeks of intent to divide and mislead Filipinos. Divided, we fall more easily into another dictatorship.
If Du30 can brazenly take away lives, he can do the same with freedom. Salvador Panelo foreboded: “Those who are against martial law are the criminals, tax evaders and smugglers. All who are against good government will be against martial law.”
Always a step ahead, Du30 preemptively warned of “massive protests (Loida Nicolas Lewis plot) to oust him” giving public indignation a different spin. “Protests need no permit,” he said, but are we being lured into a script to fulfill conditions of “widespread violence”? With bombing scenarios primed and predicated, be wary of another Plaza Miranda.
Du30 lured Marcos burial protesters to the Supreme Court (file a case, he said), and now by dint of an AFP regulation, a Supreme Court ruling and permanent burial in Libingan ng mga Bayani, there is ampler legal assertion that Ferdinand E. Marcos is innocent (by nonconviction) of an offense involving moral turpitude. Contrarily, his guilt and accountability for moral turpitude offenses (G.R. No. 180363/Brion) of plunder, abductions and EJKs are asserted by Executive Order No. 1 (1986), Republic Act No. 10368, Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law and by courts here and abroad.
So clearly we have “an assertion of opposite legal claims susceptible of judicial resolution.” If no resolution comes, this Marcos-friendly government may invoke the argument that the Marcos dictatorship’s plunder, abductions and EJKs (which are the basis for human rights reparations and recovery of Marcos’ loot) cannot lawfully remain attributed to someone innocent of moral turpitude; in turn this could be cited as basis to forego recovery of Marcos’ loot, maybe even to reimburse P170 billion “erroneously” confiscated from the estate of an innocent, decorated ex-soldier and president. Outrageous? Not for inherent dictators.
Soon Du30 will extend the reach of the Presidential Commission on Good Government away from the Marcoses. Best to inoculate our legal system from the outrageous. Otherwise, legitimized loot in billions + Congress minions + federal parliamentary government = future Prime Minister Bongbong Marcos.
I truly hope I am wrong about all these, because the last we need is a psychotic master strategist who isn’t really fighting evil but rather redefining it (genocide, deception, rape, razing human rights and rule of law) to look good and acceptable.
Glaringly, Du30 defines a dictator’s final act of rape as an act of healing. I’m not for ousting Mano Digong but for actively checking authoritarian tendencies early (such as stealing the vice presidency).
Maybe a good part of him is still human and understand we will do everything in our power (except deceive and kill) to expel Marcos’ bones which he helped stab deeply into our hallowed pantheon for heroes.
We will not be perpetually raped by a dead dictator DU30 is raising.
ERNIE LAPUZ
