Tañada to Duterte: Yes, Marcos was president, but what kind?

Anti-Marcos protesters gather at the People Power Monument along Edsa in Quezon City, on Nov. 30, 2016, to protest the burial of dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Photo by GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE/Philippine Daily Inquirer

“Yes, Marcos was president. Yes, he was a soldier. But what kind of president and soldier?” former Sen. Wigberto “Bobby” Tañada asked.

And thousands of people chanted loudly: “Thief! Dictator!”

This was among the scenes that unfolded on Wednesday at the People Power Monument outside Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, where a huge crowd, many of them millennials, gathered to protest the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Tañada, who is now the chairman of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, referred to his statement as the “third question” that President Rodrigo Duterte should answer.

Last Nov. 24, on his arrival from his trip to Peru for the APEC Economic Managers’ Summit, Duterte defended his decision to allow Marcos’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani by asking his criticis two questions: Was Marcos a president? Was Marcos a soldier?

He said if they could answer those questions in the negative then he would gladly step down.

According to regulations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, presidents and soldiers are among those qualified to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The Supreme Court cited those regulations in deciding that no law forbids the burial of the former president there.

Tañada also pleaded with the Marcos family to return the remains of their patriarch to Batac, Ilocos Norte province.

“He was there for 27 years, and we never bothered them,” he said. “Why would they transfer him? Just to deepen our wounds?”

The remains of Marcos, who died in 1989, were flown from Hawaii, where he lived in exile since his ouster in February 1986, and taken to Batac, Ilocos Norte. Last Nov. 18, his remains were transferred to the Libingan ng mga Bayani – without any announcement from either the government or the Marcos family, triggering protests all over the country.

Wednesday’s gathering was the biggest so far, with almost 20,000 people attending, according to the latest estimate of organizers. /atm