Manila: Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos remains a “false hero” and should not have been buried at the National Heroes Cemetery a year ago, opposition Senators have said.
“The arrangement was planned in secret, against the law and against the wishes of the Filipino people, many of whom to this day demand justice for the horrors of the Marcos regime. One could not have expected more from a family of thieves who remain unapologetic and wilfully ignorant of their crimes,” A joint statement released on Saturday by Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon, Senators Bam Aquino, Leila De Lima, Risa Hontiveros, Francis Pangilinan, and Antonio Trillanes IV said.
“While a false hero [Marcos] was being buried at the Heroes’ Cemetery, true heroes were rising to the challenge and making their voices heard. Let us choose to remember not the burial [of Marcos] but the people who rose to the call: [and to] protesters who showed a strong sense of hope, pride, and solidarity,” the statement said.
“Amid this dark attempt at historical revisionism came the light of thousands of indignant Filipinos who remember their history and cry out: he is not a hero,” they added.
Some 75,000 victims of Marcos’ martial law rule that began in 1972 are still awaiting reparation, members of rights groups said.
They said it was “not easy to forget” the gross human rights violation that occurred during the Marcos regime, which began in 1965 and ended in his ouster by a people-backed military mutiny in 1986.
Ten members of “Block Marcos” carried shovels during a protest rally at the gates of the National Heroes Cemetery, to reiterate their call for the exhumation of the remains of Marcos.
Payment of reparations to rights victims should not be used as an excuse for the burial of Marcos at the National Heroes Cemetery, the rights groups said.
Opposition senators and anti-Marcos sympathisers held protest rallies on November 18, 2016 when the Marcos family transferred his preserved remains from a crypt in a family-owned mausoleum in his hometown in Ilocos Norte, northern Luzon to the National Heroes Cemetery in Metro Manila’s suburban Taguig.
Many former activists and government officials, however, said the burial of Marcos at the National Cemetery healed a divided nation.
Protesters blamed President Rodrigo Duterte for having allowed it to happen. A friend of the Marcos family, Duterte’s father briefly served as a Marcos cabinet member while his mother was one of the activists who supported former President Corazon Aquino after the latter was propped to power by the people-backed military mutiny in 1986.
The Marcos burial was approved by the Supreme Court in response to those who opposed it from happening. The Apex Court said there is no law that prevents to burial of Marcos since he was a president and never convicted of plunder.
After Marcos died in Hawaii in 1989, former President Fidel Ramos allowed the return of his remains in northern Luzon in 1992.
Although he was ousted for acquiring ill-gotten wealth, estimated at $10 billion (Dh36.7 billion) while he was in power, he was never charged of plunder in court after he and the former first family lived in exile in Hawaii.
There is a Philippine law that prevents the filing of cases against a person who is absent in his country.
Last August, Duterte revealed that the Marcos family wanted an out-of-court settlement for the return of the supposed ill-gotten wealth and gold bars. The Presidential Commission on Good Government has recovered $4 billion since it was established by Mrs Aquino in 1986.
Former Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr is contesting his loss as vice presidential candidate in the 2016 polls. His rival, Vice President Leni Robredo narrowly won by more than 250,000 votes. Robredo run under the political party of former President Benigno Aquino.
Former first lady Imelda Marcos has served several elected posts as a congresswoman representing her hometown in central Philippines, and now, her husband’s hometown in northern Luzon. Marcos eldest daughter Imee was elected provincial governor of her father’s hometown.
