MILF cites Duterte ‘prerogative’ on Marcos’ burial plan

OZAMIZ CITY—They both bore the brunt of military forces under the strongman rule of Ferdinand Marcos, but two revolutionary groups have differing stance on the issue of burying the dictator at Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leaves it to President Duterte’s discretion while the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) strongly opposes the idea.

Both are engaged in a peace process with the government. The MILF already forged a peace pact that is up for implementation, while the CPP is trying to restart on-and-off talks through its political arm, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

President Duterte has unleashed a firestorm recently when he ordered preparations for the burial of the late president in the heroes’ cemetery.

Deposed in a 1986 popular uprising, Marcos died in exile in 1989 in Hawaii. In 1993, his body was brought to his hometown in Ilocos Norte province where it lies in a refrigerated crypt.

A succession of presidents after the 1986 uprising have steered clear of the question of according Marcos a hero’s burial, until Mr. Duterte came to power on June 30.

Principally, objections to Marcos’ burial in the heroes’ cemetery stemmed from the human rights atrocities committed during his reign as president, especially during martial law, and his amassing ill-gotten wealth from the country’s coffers which up to this day is subjected to a number of court cases.

Activists also dispute Marcos’ tag as a war hero, citing accounts of his faking of war medals and other accolades.

“We share very much many of the reasons for objecting to it,” the MILF said in a statement.

The group cited that the Moros “suffered the most numbers of killed or victims [at] the height of martial law, in particular those victims of massacres.”

“This is not to include the thousands upon thousands of hectares of Moro and other indigenous peoples—ancestral lands in Mindanao given to migrants or outsiders,” the MILF said.

However, if Mr. Duterte “decides to break tradition, then the best attitude we can probably adopt is to conduct a reality check: He is the president and he has the prerogative,” it explained.

“Besides, whatever his decision carries, only he himself has to answer,” it added.

Mr. Duterte has said that Marcos’ burial at the heroes’ cemetery is on account of his being a former soldier and president.

This, the MILF said, was “enough to gauge his intention” and that Mr. Duterte “is well within his official capacity to allow the burial.”

But the leadership of the Maoist rebels “condemns” such a burial plan.

In a statement released Saturday night, the CPP said a Libingan ng mga Bayani burial for the former strongman is tantamount to “virtually deleting Marcos’ bloody record as a military despot and the fascist violence, human rights violation, corruption and economic hardships he made the Filipino people suffer through 14 years of dictatorship.”

It lambasted Mr. Duterte for being “bullheaded” with his decision. Such insistence, it said, “reveals his indifference to people’s demands” and “displays extreme insensitivity to the sensibilities of thousands of victims, families and survivors of martial law barbarities.”

“He insults the memory of thousands of patriotic Filipinos from all walks of life who gave up their lives at the prime of their youth to fight for the dictatorship’s overthrow,” the CPP said.

The recent CPP stance is a reversal of the earlier position of its Utrecht-based founder, Jose Maria Sison, who said he had no problems with Marcos being buried in the heroes’ cemetery because those buried there were not all martyrs, anyway.