Perez: ‘There’s no longer a national damnation of Marcos’

LOYALISTS’ RALLY Marcos supporters rejoice along Padre Faura Street after learning about the favorable decision of the Supreme Court on the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at Libingan ng mga Bayani. —LYN RILLON

In his concurring opinion allowing the hero’s burial for the late dictator, Associate Justice Jose Perez said the “evidently substantial” vote received by defeated vice presidential candidate former Sen. Bongbong Marcos in the May elections showed that “there is no longer a national damnation” of the Marcos patriarch. Perez also maintained that President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to grant a hero’s burial for Marcos was a political question answered by the chief executive as part of a campaign promise.

READ: SC votes, 9-5, for burial of Marcos at Libingan

Here’s a summary of Perez’s opinion as released by the SC public information office:

Justice Jose Portugal Perez also stressed the nature of the question as political and thus not reviewable but emphasized that the President did not commit grave abuse of discretion when he proceeded, upon his election to office, to implement his campaign promise to have the remains of Ferdinand E. Marcos interred at the LNMB (Libingan ng mga Bayani). Justice Perez pointed to the petitioners’ judicial admissions that then candidate Duterte had promised the burial of Marcos and that this campaign promise had been met with opposition and protest. Noting that petitioners had admitted to having participated in the election of options and opposed then candidate Duterte’s campaign promise, it became clear that the question was then clearly one left to the will of the people. Justice Perez pointed out that petitioners, not having prevailed in the electoral exercise, now choose to come to the Court presenting a question, cloaked in legal garb, that remained political. In his conclusion, Justice Perez stated that:

“Whether the policy of healing and reconciliation ‘over and above the pain and suffering of the human rights victims’ is in grave abuse of discretion or not is answered by the evidently substantial Marcos vote during the fresh and immediately preceding national elections of 2016. The election result is a showing that, while there may have once been, there is no longer a national damnation of President Ferdinand E. Marcos; that the ‘constitutionalization’ of the sin and personification is no longer of national acceptance. A Marcos vote came out of the elections, substantial enough to be a legitimate consideration in the executive policy formulation. To go back, a Libingan burial for Marcos was a promise made by President Duterte, which promise was opposed by petitioners, in spite of which opposition, candidate Duterte was elected President.

All in all, the redemption of an election pledge and the policy which has basis in the result of the election, cannot be tainted with grave abuse of discretion. As things are, the issue presented by the petitioners should not even be touched by the Court since it is a political question already resolved politically.”

Duterte, who has been very vocal about his alliance with the Marcos family, pushed for the hero’s burial as part of his campaign promise despite strong opposition from martial law victims and the general public. Voting 9-5 with one abstention, the high court on Tuesday junked all petitions against Duterte’s directive, saying the President did not commit grave abuse of discretion.

READ: Bongbong Marcos thanks Supreme Court, Duterte

Duterte 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 which he 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. YG