‘SC broke our hearts’—Hontiveros on Marcos hero’s burial

Senator Risa Hontiveros INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES

The Supreme Court broke our hearts.

This was how Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday described the high tribunal’s decision allowing the hero’s burial for the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Hontiveros said the SC ruling intended to “effectively wipe the Marcos slate clean and negate the sacrifices of the thousands of brave souls who fought and suffered under the brutal Marcos dictatorship.”

“The Supreme Court has failed miserably the test of history band broken our hearts. By allowing the remains of the late Ferdinand E. Marcos to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the high tribunal has failed to protect the truth from the Marcoses’ fictional universe,” Hontiveros said in a statement.

READ: SC OKs Marcos burial at Libingan

“It also aims to contravene the core policy and historical basis of our 1987 constitution, which was drafted to reject martial law. This decision undermined existing laws such as the Human Rights Victims and Reparation Act of 2013 aimed to provide full and effective reparation to the victims of martial law and recognition of the abuses that took place,” she added.

Voting 9-5 with one abstention, the high court on Tuesday junked all petitions against President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to bury Marcos in the heroes’ cemetery.

Duterte, who has been very vocal about his alliance with the Marcos family, pushed for the Libingan burial as part of his campaign promise despite strong opposition from martial law victims and the general public. The Marcos regime was marred by human rights abuses, curtailed press freedom, corruption, forced disappearances, and unlawful arrest and killings of opposition forces.

The President had thanked Marcos’ daughter Imee for supporting and donating funds for his presidential bid, but the Ilocos Norte governor denied shelling out money for Duterte’s campaign. It was also his friendship with  the dictator’s son and namesake Bongbong Marcos which cited as reason in not immediately giving Vice President Leni Robredo a Cabinet position, saying he did not want to offend the feelings of the former senator.

But noting that the SC decision is not executory, Hontiveros called on President Duterte to “respond to the challenge of history and reject with finality all plans to give Marcos a hero’s burial.”

“I call on the President I ask him to rise above his indebtedness and loyalty to the Marcos family. If at all that he received money from the Marcoses for his presidential bid, President Duterte has no right to return such favors with the history and the dignity of the Filipino people,” she said.

“President Duterte is at a critical juncture in history. He could either stand up for truth and justice or submit himself as an instrument to the dictator family’s desperate attempt to rewrite history and clear their name. I urge the President to choose well,” Hontiveros added.

Hontiveros also called on her colleagues in the Senate to sign Resolution No 86 which she filed, opposing Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. “At a time when truth and history are threatened, the Senate must make a brave stand,” she said.

Noting that no burial can make the late dictator a hero, the lady senator urged Filipinos, particularly the younger generations, to “fight to make sure that their own history is not rewritten for them.”

“No tombstone, no grandiose cemetery can change the fact that Marcos was not a hero. He was a plunderer, torturer and a thief with a family seeking to rewrote history to serve their interests. It is our duty to stand against this travesty and say—never again. Only then can we look back to the past with pride, and future with hope. Let us not fail the test of history,” she added.

The high tribunal ruled that there was no grave abuse of discretion on the part of President Duterte in exercising his mandate and that no law prohibits Marcos’ burial at Libingan. JE

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