Duterte: FM burial up to SC

DAVAO CITY—President Duterte said yesterday he would abide by whatever the Supreme Court decides on the petition to stop the burial of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos at Libingan ng mga Bayani.

“We will follow what the Supreme Court says, for after all it is the Supreme Court that interprets the law,” Mr. Duterte said in a brief press conference here Sunday

afternoon shortly before he left for state visits to Brunei and China.

The President earlier said he would allow the burial of Marcos at Libingan, citing the law that allows the burial of former heads of state in the heroes cemetery. Reburying Marcos there, however, has drawn strong protests from individuals and sectors that suffered under his martial rule.

“My position is that there is that law; it must be followed,” President Duterte said, adding that questions of Marcos’s heroism and war medals would have “to be resolved, maybe, in the generations to come.”

It cannot be decided now by groups that were “actively, physically and emotionally involved in the issues,” he said.

Mr. Duterte said the issue on whether or not to bury the strongman at Libingan had divided the country.

“We have alienated almost the entire Ilocanos,” he said.