Jun P. Espina 2 min read
Updated on February 15th, 2020
Dictator Marcos. His upcoming burial at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani (LNMB) has divided our nation. It is lawful according to the Administration lawmakers. It should be without “state honors,” a few writers gave their opinion.
Dictator Marcos to be Buried Illegally
Negros Occidental Rep. Mercedes Alvarez said that Republic Act 289 (enacted on 16 June 1948) legalizes Marcos’ burial at the LNMB. Here is the language of R.A. 289: “Section 1. To perpetuate the memory of all the Presidents of the Philippines, national heroes and patriots for the INSPIRATION and EMULATION of this generation and of generations still unborn, there shall be constructed a National Pantheon which shall be the burial place of their mortal remains.” (Emphasis mine.)
Dictator Marcos is automatically disqualified to be accorded a hero’s burial for he could never be the president worthy “for the INSPIRATION and EMULATION of this generation and of generations still unborn.” Dictator Marcos, therefore, should not be erected a hero’s epitaph at the LNMB for it is both illegal and a black eye to the history of the Filipino nation.
The Interment Policy also known as AFPR (G 161 374) or Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Regulation states that “those who were convicted of an offense involving moral turpitude cannot be buried at the cemetery.”
The basic principle of law is reason. The burial of Marcos at the Heroes Cemetery is logically faced with a thunderous opposition and a glaring violation of the statutory precept known as reasonable doubt. “Legal certainty,” as defined, “is regarded as grounding value for the legality of legislative and administrative measures taken by public authorities.” The hero’s burial of Dictator Marcos does not have the legal green light since it violated R. A. 289 and other provisions of law. It is confronted with a reasonable doubt.
Amnesty International reported that Marcos sent to prison around 70,000 Filipinos who were against his authoritarian rule; tortured were 34,000, and those who died, 3,240. In 1995, the Hawaiian jury ordered the Marcoses to pay $2 billion to around 10,000 human rights victims of the Marcos’ regime.
Written on the LNMB’s entrance: “I do not know the dignity of his birth, but I do know the glory of his death.” We know Dictator Marcos. And we cannot rewrite history.
The new Philippines Administration that is riding on an anti-corruption political platform is now ordering the burial of Dictator Marcos at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani (Heroes Cemetery), the man who was reported to have been the second most corrupt leader in the whole world.
The authorities may bury Marcos at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani, but the history of our nation will never be kind with such a move that can wipe out consequently the crimes of Dictator Marcos to the Filipinos for two decades of Martial Law and reign of terror.
