Senate resolution vs Marcos burial fails approval

KEEP HIM IN BATAC Hundreds of people gathered at the Lapu-Lapu monument in Rizal Park, Manila to protest the burial of President Ferdinand Marcos at Libingan ng mga Bayani. President Duterte is determined to allow a state burial for the late dictator. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate against the burial of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani has failed to get the approval of the chamber after only eight senators voted for it.

A majority vote or 11 of the 20 senators present were needed to approve Senate Resolution No. 86, “expressing the sense of the Senate that the crimes of the former President Ferdinand Marcos to the Republic, and the human rights violations committed under his regime, render him unfit to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.”

The eight who voted to adopt the resolution were the following:

1. Senator Bam Aquino
2. Senator Leila de Lima
3. Senator Franklin Drilon
4. Senator Risa Hontiveros
5. Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan
6. Senator Grace Poe
7. Senator Joel Villanueva
8. Senate President Aqulino “Koko” Pimentel III

The six senators who voted against the resolution are:

1. Senator Richard Gordon
2. Senator Gringo Honasan
3. Senator Panfilo Lacson
4. Senator Manny Pacquiao
5. Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III
6. Senator Cynthia Villar

The six senators, on the other hand, who abstained were the following:

1. Senator Sonny Angara
2. Senator Nancy Binay
3. Senator Francis Escudero
4. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian
5. Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto
6. Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri

It was Drilon who moved to adopt the resolution, filed by Hontiveros.

“With eight affirmative votes, six negative votes, six abstentions, the motion is lost,” Pimentel announced after the voting.

Angara immediately took the floor to explain why he abstained from voting, saying the issue should be decided, not by politicians, but by the people through a national referendum.

“It’s a very divisive and emotional issue as seen by the discussion the past few days leading up to the Supreme Court decision and the days afterwards. And I feel it’s an issue uniquely suited to be decided not by the politicians but by our people in national referendum,” he said.

“I do believe in national healing, I do believe that Governor Imee’s apology is a good first step, but I do feel that the wounds are still a bit raw; the history has not been fully written on this chapter of martial law. We owe it to our people to hear the stories of torture , of disappearances…” said the senator, referring to Marcos’ daughter, Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos.

Other senators also stood up to explain their respective votes. JE/rga