Balay denounces Marcos burial like a “thief in the night”

Balay has likened to an act of a “thief in the night” the secretive manner of the burial of the late deposed  dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LnmB-“Hero’s Cemetery”) on November 13.  

The swiftness of the Marcos’s internment tend to believe the claim of the dictator’s family and their supporters that there is a popular support for his burial in the cemetery where remains of former presidents, national artists, war veterans, soldiers, and other eminent personalities have been laid to rest.  

The remains of Marcos has been lifted from his hometown in Batac, Ilocos Norte by a helicopter to be buried with military honors in the LnmB without any public announcement. This came even as human rights groups and victims of martial law have been preparing to appeal the decision of nine Supreme Court justices that supported   the order of President Duterte to allow the Marcos family to transfer the body of the late dictator to the Hero’s Cemetery.

“Once again, the public was caught by surprise just like the time when the entire country was placed by Marcos under martial law. That kind of  stealth is characteristic of a thief who strikes in the dead of night when the victims are unaware,” Balay Program Coordinator, Kaloy Anasarias, said.

More than 74, 000 people have been put to jail  and 34,000 people have been tortured during the  24-year reign of Marcos, according to Anasarias.  He lamented the decision of President Duterte for allowing the Marcos burial on the first  place as a fulfilment of his campaign promise to the Marcos family in exchange for their political support for his candidacy as chief executive. 

“It pains us to see that the President has chosen to honor his political debts to the Marcoses rather than pay tribute to the memories of those whose lives and freedom were lost at the time of the dictatorship,” Anasarias said.

Balay also   chided   the former Davao City mayor for   showing  “selective memory.

“How could President Duterte  remember the massacre of 600 Tausugs   by the American occupation forces in Bud Dajo in Jolo in 1906 and not acknowledge the  burning of Jolo in 1974 and the mass killing of  1,500 Moro residents in  a village in Palimbang town in Sultan Kudarat province   during  martial law?  Wasn’t he the mayor in Davao City when the people were rising up in a general strike to denounce the Marcos dictatorship,” Balay asked.

Everyone wants healing. The nation has to move on. But this will only happen if there is an acknowledgement of the wrongdoing done by the Marcos regime. The pain and suffering of the victim may be alleviated if genuine remorse is demonstrated by those who were responsible for the atrocities during the martial law – if the victims are sufficiently indemnified and that dark period in Philippine history is memorialized so that the people will not it let happen again. But by allowing the Marcos burial in the LnmB,  President Duterte will go down in history as the president who has chosen to  stoke the continuing wounds of the past to divide society, dishonour historical memory, and deny justice to a generation that will  haunt the nation for years to  come.