Victims Insulted By Proposed Hero’s Burial for Marcos

By RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – Survivors of martial law criticized a House resolution seeking to bury former president Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

The Samahan ng mga Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (Selda), an organization of former political prisoners, said the resolution authored by Sorsogon Representative Salvador Escudero and signed by 190 House members is “an an affront to the Filipino people and the thousands of victims of the Marcoses.”

Selda secretary general Fr. Dionito Cabillas said the proposal “makes a mockery out of the horrors that the Filipino people endured during the martial law era: numerous human rights violations including summary executions, enforced disappearances, torture, illegal arrests and detention, hamletting and forced evacuation, among others.”

Cabillas reminded the lawmakers in the House of Representatives of the gross human rights violations and atrocities committed under the Marcos dictatorship. Selda initiated the filing of the historic class action suit against Marcos and his family immediately after People Power I.

Cabillas cited the decision by the US Federal Court issued on September 22, 1992, which found Marcos guilty of gross human rights violations and awarded compensatory damages to the victims.

In a separate statement, Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), said a hero’s burial for Marcos is “insensitive and will send a strong signal to dictators past, present and future.”

“It’s an insult to human rights victims who continue to seek justice. It gives a salute to massive plunder still unrecovered,” Olalia said.

“Pres. Aquino should be best reminded by his own father’s experience as a victim during that dark period in our history,” Cabillas further said.

Twenty five years after the people power uprising that toppled the Marcos dictatorship, the Marcoses are back in the political arena. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is a senator. His mother Imelda is congresswoman of the second district of Ilocos Norte and his sister Maria Imelda “Imee” is the governor of Ilocos Norte.