EDITORIAL - Divisiveness

It’s time to bury grudges, end divisiveness and work for national unity. These reasons have been cited by President Duterte in allowing the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The President had made his position on this issue clear even during the election campaign, and he probably believes his landslide victory includes an endorsement of his stand.

As reactions to the planned burial indicate, however, the move is stoking divisiveness as the abuses of the dictatorship are remembered. It has not helped that the Marcoses have reportedly set the burial for Sept. 18, a week after the birth anniversary of the former president and a few days before the 44th anniversary of the declaration of martial law.

Thousands of human rights victims of the dictatorship are still around. The wounds of authoritarian rule have been slow to heal because no one has been punished for the atrocities of the dictatorship. Even a landmark scheme for restitution – largely symbolic as the amounts involved are modest – has yet to be implemented.

Opponents of the planned burial say the late dictator does not deserve interment in a hero’s cemetery. The opponents also point out that the Marcos regime is remembered for corruption on such a large scale that new words had to be coined for it, with the so-called conjugal dictatorship accused of “kleptocracy” and an “edifice complex” that meant billions in kickbacks. Such a president does not deserve a hero’s burial, the opponents have said as they prepare to take the case to the Supreme Court.

It won’t be a hero’s burial, President Duterte has explained, but one that is accorded to former chief executives. This privilege, Malacañang said yesterday, does not distinguish between good and bad presidents.

The reaction to the planned burial, however, should at least make Malacañang pause and ponder the impact. If ending divisiveness is the ultimate goal, this is hardly the way to go about achieving it.