'FM burial issue can wait'

MANILA, Philippines - Secretary Ricky Carandang of the Presidential Communications Office for Strategic Planning and Development clarified yesterday that the recommendation of Vice President Jejomar Binay to bury the remains of the late President Ferdinand Marcos in his home province of Ilocos Norte with full military honors is not something “we have to decide on today.” 

“This issue can wait,” Carandang replied when asked for President Aquino’s stand on the highly sensitive issue.

“If you think about it, there are many more urgent issues that we need to attend to before the Marcos burial, so while there are recommendations and there are opinions, the President is mulling many of these opinions and recommendations,” he added.

“And again, it’s not something we have to decide tomorrow. This has been pending for 20-plus years, and there are many other things that we need to address right now, so it’s not something that we feel we have to decide on today,” Carandang explained.

“I think he (Aquino) prefers to focus on other things right now,” he added, noting that the President is still in the process of hearing all parties concerned with the issue, among them human rights victims during the martial law period.

He said there is no pressure from the Marcoses regarding the issue. 

Aquino and Marcos’ eldest daughter Imee, now the governor of Ilocos Norte, are good friends since both were former colleagues in the opposition bloc at the House of Representatives. 

Marcos died in Hawaii in September 1989, during the term of Aquino’s mother former President Corazon Aquino.

“As you know, in 1993, the body of Marcos came back, there was some talk that he was accorded some kind of honors already by the Ramos administration, so all of these have to be taken into account before President Aquino makes a final decision,” he explained.

Carandang said all concerned parties would be consulted before the issue could be resolved. “There are many people who want their opinions heard. And we feel that because this is such a sensitive issue, we want to hear as many of these opinions as we can,” Carandang said. He said that there are human rights victims who claimed that Marcos should not be given a military burial accorded usually to heroes.