Marcoses owe Philippines an apology – FVR

MANILA, Philippines - Former president Fidel Ramos has added his voice to the growing clamor against burying Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with GMA News on Friday, Ramos said the Marcos family owes the country an apology for the abuses under martial law, adding that the 1986 civil uprising that ousted Marcos should neither be forgotten nor trivialized.

At the same time, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) appealed to President Duterte to reconsider his decision to allow Marcos’ burial at the heroes’ cemetery, saying the justice of history is “far greater” than what any court could render.

Voting 9-5 with one abstention, the Supreme Court has dismissed seven petitions questioning the legality of Duterte’s approval to bury Marcos at the Libingan.

But Duterte has said he won’t budge, pointing out anew yesterday that no law bars a dictator from being buried alongside heroes, soldiers and other former presidents.

Don’t forget, trivialize EDSA

Citing the high court’s decision, which says it disagrees with petitioners’ claim that Marcos was “dishonorably discharged” through the 1986 People Power Revolution, Ramos said in Filipino: “To forget or trivialize that (People Power) is like forgetting and trivializing the hardships, efforts and contributions of the soldiers and policemen like us.”

“Address (the apology) to all descendants of the victims, whether or not there is an investigation, to show sincere desire to discard, reject and eliminate already all the dictatorial tendencies and happenings during that period,” Ramos said.

Ramos, then chief of the Marcos government’s combined military and police forces called the Philippine Constabulary, was a key player in the 1986 civil uprising that ousted Marcos by defecting from the Marcos administration to that of then newly installed president Corazon Aquino.

Use loot for charity

Ramos said the Marcos family should return to the public coffers their ill-gotten wealth.

He said the government under his term was able to recover the Swiss deposits of the Marcoses.

“But if there’s still some left with the family, then this could be used for philantrophic or humanitarian support,” Ramos said.

Marcos’ widow Imelda is the incumbent representative of Ilocos Norte’s second district in Congress, while their eldest daughter Imee is governor of the province. Marcos’ only son and namesake, Bongbong, is a former senator and lost his vice presidential bid in the May 2016 elections.

Far greater justice of history

In a letter addressed to Duterte on Friday, NHCP chair Maria Serena Diokno stressed that her appeal is “based not on a narrow and short-sighted reading of law, but on historical facts.”

“The justice of history, anchored on historical truth, is far greater than that which any court, including the highest court of the land, can render,” Diokno said, opposing the decision by the majority in the high court that junked the petitions against the burial of late former president Marcos at the Libingan. 

“As President of our Republic, you have the unique opportunity and obligation to heed the demands of the justice of history, and thereby lead the way to true healing,” she added.

Diokno pointed out that the NHCP’s appeal to oppose Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is primarily based on the enactment of Republic Act 10368, which mandated the reparation and recognition of human rights victims during the Marcos regime. This law also ensured the compensation of martial law victims.

“The integrity and historical basis of the government’s efforts to monetarily compensate the victims of these violations of human rights violations would be wiped out by the singular act of burying the man at the helm of this dictatorial regime in a national shrine like the Libingan ng mga Bayani,” she stressed.

Diokno cited the NHCP’s findings last July 12 that Marcos lied about receiving military medals from the United States for his supposed service during World War 2, that his guerrilla unit “Ang Mga Maharlika” was never recognized, that US officials did not recognize Marcos’ rank promotion and that some of Marcos’ actions as a soldier were questioned by US military officials.

“When historical matter is under question or grave doubt, as expressed in the military records about Mr. Marcos’ actions and character as a soldier, the matter may not be established or taken as fact,” the NHCP said in its study. “A doubtful record also does not serve as sound, unassailable basis of historical recognition of any sort, let alone burial in a site intended, as its name suggests, for heroes.”

The Supreme Court held that there was no grave abuse of discretion on the part of the executive branch, as it only upheld the exercise of the prerogative authority of the president under Article VII, Section 17 of the Constitution.

The majority of the justices also agreed that Marcos was qualified to be interred at the Libingan as a “former president and commander-in-chief, a legislator, a secretary of national defense, a military personnel, a veteran and a Medal of Valor awardee.”

Sending mixed signals

In Baguio, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said yesterday Duterte’s decision to allow Marcos’ burial at the Libingan was sending mixed signals.

“If the President proceeds in letting Marcos be buried in Libingan, it will bring to question his own assertion of being a leftist,” the CPP said.

The CPP, presently in peace talks with the government through the National Democratic Front in Oslo, advised Duterte not to fulfill his election promise to the Marcoses.

“Such payment of political debt to the Marcoses will be regarded as an act of contempt against the Filipino people’s historic judgment against the Marcos dictatorship,” the CPP added.

“Fulfilling such a promise, which Duterte made in exchange for support of the Marcoses in the last elections, will stir indignation among the Filipino people,” it said.

The CPP said giving Marcos a hero’s burial would be a mockery of the graves of thousands of martyrs who laid down their lives in the struggle to end the dictatorship.

“For more than 30 years, the Filipino people have sought justice for all the crimes perpetrated by the Marcoses and their cronies,” the CPP said. – Ghio Ong, Rhodina Villanueva, Artemio Dumlao, Eva Visperas, Christina Mendez