By RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – A “ paradox,” that is how the human rights group Samahan ng Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (Selda) described the recommendation of Vice president Jejomar Binayto give full military honors to the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. Selda is an organization of former political prisoners.
President Benigno S. Aquino III had designated Binay to draw up a recommendation whether to allow the burial of Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, following a resolution filed by at the House of Representatives. While Binay recommended that the late dictator Marcos be buried in Ilocos Norte and not at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, as the House resolution urged Malacañang to do, he recommended that Marcos be given full military honors.
Marcos’ remains are preserved in a refrigerated crypt in Batac City. Marcos died in Sept. 1989 in Honolulu, Hawaii and his remains were brought to the country in 1993.
“In the first place, we have stated that the survey conducted by Vice Pres. Binay was unnecessary because it opens the issue to the possibility of a manipulated ‘popular’ vote in favor of the rehabilitation of the Marcos name despite his ouster by the people in 1986, the extensive human rights violation during the dictatorship, and the plunder he and his family committed. These and his numerous crimes against the Filipino people clearly show that he is not a hero,” Marie Hilao Enriquez, chairperson of Selda, said.
Binay’s office conducted a survey among legislators regarding the issue, but none of the 130 parties asked submitted their response.
“We believe that the remains of Mr. Marcos should have been buried right after his death in 1989; or at the time the family was allowed to bring him back to the country; but, not in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Doing so would distort the people’s verdict on the military dictatorship. Not then; not even now. His memory should remind us all of man’s inhumanity to his fellowman and strengthen our resolve to fight for a better world,” Enriquez added.
Enriquez is the daughter of one of the original named plaintiffs, Celsa and Maximo Hilao, in the historic class suit against Marcos. Selda initiated and led the 9, 539 martial law victims in filing the case against Marcos in the US Federal Court system on April 7, 1986, two months after the dictator’s ouster by the so-called People Power I uprising.
Enriquez’s sister Liliosa was among the first to be detained immediately after the declaration of martial law and was tortured, raped, and killed.
“It is up to the AFP to ‘honor’ the fascist dictator who pillaged, plundered, bludgeoned, imprisoned, tortured and raped our country for 14 long years under martial law. If these honors will be bestowed, it clearly illustrates the military’s allegiance to icons of barbarity and rabid violators of people’s rights such as Marcos,” Enriquez said.
Meanwhile, Bonifacio Ilagan, Selda vice chairman, said Aquino should immediately declare his stand on the issue and heed the people’s calls against the hero’s burial for Marcos.
“It has been 25 years since the dictator Marcos was ousted by people power and 19 years after the historic decision by the US Court granting justice for the 9,539 victims of martial law. More than ever, the nation must prevent efforts of the Marcos family to revise and distort history by trying to honor the late dictator as a hero. The youth must be taught how the nation suffered under the dictatorship and also how the people fought it, with many of its finest sons and daughters answering the call of the struggle for justice and freedom. They are the real heroes,” Ilagan, whose sister Rizalina has been forcibly disappeared, said.
Ilagan reiterated the call for Aquino to certify as urgent the passage of the Marcos Victims Compensation bill. Ilagan said the proposed legislation will officially recognize that the Marcos dictatorship indeed violated the rights of thousands who fought against it; and acknowledge the State’s moral and legal obligation to render justice, through indemnification, to the victims of human rights violations during martial law.
Pagbabago! initiated last week a petition to oppose Marcos’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
“We are outraged by the proposal at the House of Representatives to bury the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. House Resolution (HR) 1135 is a gross distortion of our history. If left unopposed, it will flagrantly rewrite one of the darkest chapters of the country’s history and will make a despised tyrant and plunderer, whom the people ousted through People Power in 1986, a hero all of a sudden,” the petition read.
“We could not allow this if we are to move on as a people and as a nation. We could not simply forget the past in the name of so-called political reconciliation which in reality is nothing but a compromise between factions of the ruling elite for the sake of political expediency. Doing so is a surefire formula for another tyrant and plunderer – more vicious than ever – to again arise and terrorize the people. Leaders like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who did not officially put the country under Martial Law but oppressed the people and plundered the country very much like Marcos did, should serve as a pungent reminder of how a country must never forget nor distort its past but instead learn from it,” it further read.??The group asserted that burying Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani will “practically absolve his relatives and cronies from their accountability and will further legitimize the anti-people policies and fascist decrees that his dictatorship initiated and were continued by succeeding regimes.”
Among those who signed the petition are Dr. Carol Araullo, Bayan chairwoman, Myrna H. Buendia and Judy M. Taguiwalo, who were all detained during martial law.
Dante C. Simbulan, Sr., former AFP officer, Lorna Segovia, Engr. Jun Lozada, Prof. Theodore O. Te of UP College of Law, Edith Burgos and Sr. Mary Aida Casambre, RGS also signed the petition.
The petition also gathered support from international groups. Officers and members of Action for Peace and Development in the Philippines in Australia, National Lawyers Guild in the USA, Australian Council of Trade Unions, International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement, Garden Court International in London also signed the petition. 
