SC urged to take moral high ground on Marcos hero burial

The lawyer who led the campaign at the Supreme Court (SC) against the government’s K to 12 program has joined the call against the burial of the late President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB).

In a letter to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Severo Brilliantes said the Supreme Court should take the moral high ground in deciding on the petitions seeking to stop the government from allowing Marcos to be buried at LNMB.

“Dictator Marcos has long been dead. He is entitled to a decent burial but not at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. I hope and pray that the Honorable Supreme Court, in rendering a decision on the petition, will be reminded of the concurring opinion of Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban in the case of David versus Arroyo in 2006 where he declared that ‘and even for those who deeply care for the President, it is timely and wise for this court to set down the parameters of power and to make known, politely but firmly, its dogged determination to perform its constitutional duty at all times and against all odds,’” Brilliantes said.

“Perhaps this country would never have had to experience the wrenching pain of dictatorship; and a past President would not have fallen into the precipice of authoritarianism, if the Supreme Court then had the moral courage to remind him steadfastly of his mortality and the inevitable historical damnation of despots and tyrants. Let not this Court fall into that same rut,” he added, quoting from Panganiban’s opinion.

He also echoed the arguments raised in the two petitions against the Marcos burial, saying the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte is unconstitutional.

Brillantes explained that the LNMB as well as the country’s struggles during the martial law years were part of the national historical and cultural heritage enshrined under Article IV of the 1987 Constitution.

“Said burial however will utterly do violence to said mandates of our Constitution and our laws, in utter disrespect of our heroes and the entire Filipino nation, since it will perpetrate the lie, in clear distortion of history that Marcos, the plunderer and violator of human rights, by reason of his burial at the Libingan, is a hero. It will seriously infringe on our people’s right to the truth and to honor only those deserving their respect and veneration as well as the right not only of human rights victims but of the entire Filipino nation to be restored of their honor and dignity which were debased during the martial law years,” he said.

Brilliantes is the lawyer of the students, their parents and teachers of Manila Science High School who asked the SC to stop the implementation of the K to 12 program of the Department of Education last year.

The SC is set to hold an oral argument on the petition on Aug. 24.

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