Visitors flock to Marcos crypt

The caretaker of the Marcos mausoleum assists tourists wanting to see the body of strongman Ferdinand Marcos. —Willie Lomibao

BATAC CITY—This city stands to lose a major tourist attraction once the body of dictator Ferdinand Marcos is moved from a temperature-controlled mausoleum here to Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City where it will be buried after 27 years.

It’s an inevitable outcome for which the city has been prepared, said Vice Mayor Jeffrey Nalupta.

Tourists continued to troop to the mausoleum at the Marcos ancestral house on Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court, voting 9-5 with one abstention, ruled that President Duterte did not violate any law when he allowed Marcos’ burial at the cemetery for heroes.

These visits are expected to grow in the next few days, especially from Marcos loyalists and Ilocanos from other provinces who would want a last glimpse of the dictator before he is buried.

People also came in droves on days running up to Sept. 11, Marcos’ 99th birthday, because preparations were made to bury him on Sept. 18, Nalupta said.

The plans were suspended by a status quo order from the Supreme Court which heard petitions opposing the burial at Libingan.

“We are just waiting for another set of plans to be initiated by the Marcos family. But definitely, we will be expecting a lot of people to come here,” Nalupta said.

In a statement, Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos said she and her siblings want simple rites when they bury their father, but added that they have yet to mobilize people in the province to prepare.

The city has been developing an alternative burial site for Marcos at a proposed ecological park on a hill in San Pedro village here which overlooks downtown Batac, Nalupta said.

“I understand work [to build the park] is ongoing. As far as I know, this was designed by architect Felino ‘Jun’ Palafox Jr., who happens to be from Ilocos Norte,” he said.

Nalupta said there may be no need to rush the burial, however. “Senator [Ferdinand “Bongbong”] Marcos Jr., who was in Tacloban [City on Tuesday], said the family can afford the time for friends and supporters of the former president to pay their last respects,” he said.

Since September 1993 when the remains arrived from Hawaii where Marcos died in 1989, the mausoleum beneath the family’s ancestral house had become Ilocos Norte’s third most visited place, next to the St. Augustine Church and the Malacañang of the North, both in Paoay town.

“Most definitely, there will be a dent insofar as tourism arrivals are concerned,” said Nalupta, who served as this city’s mayor from 2007 to 2016.

Plans have been put in place to maintain the flow of tourists and visitors to the city, Nalupta said, after Batac became part of a provincial cluster of tourist areas that included Laoag City and the towns of San Nicolas, Paoay, Currimao, Pinili and Badoc.