President Duterte on Wednesday stood firm on his decision, upheld by a 9-5 vote of the Supreme Court, allowing the burial of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos at Libingan ng mga Bayani.
He said that when Ferdinand Marcos Jr. asked him on Tuesday at the memorial for Supertyphoon “Yolanda” victims in Tacloban City if the family could proceed with the interment, he told him, “It’s your choice … I’ve said (this) before. I will not take my word back.”
In a brief interview on Wednesday before he left for Malaysia, the President shrugged off the contention by leftist groups and victims of martial law atrocities that Marcos was no hero and did not deserve to be buried at the heroes’ cemetery.
“The question … about the dictatorship of Marcos is something which cannot be determined at this time. It has to have history,” he said.
“That part of the sins of Marcos has yet to be proven by a competent court,” he said. Allegations about Marcos’ stolen wealth “is an altogether different issue.”
In a decision announced on Tuesday, the high tribunal threw out seven petitions against the burial of Marcos at Libingan, declaring that there was no abuse of discretion committed by Mr. Duterte in allowing the interment of the dictator there.
Mr. Marcos, ousted in the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution, died at the age of 72 while in exile in Hawaii three years later. His body, returned to the Philippines in July 1993, is in the family mausoleum in his Batac, Ilocos Norte, hometown.
Told that Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III planned to seek a reconsideration of the court decision, Mr. Duterte said: “The law says that soldiers and ex-Presidents who died can be buried there… I simply follow the law. We cannot do anything about it. The law itself says that … (Marcos) was a President and he was a soldier.”