MANILA — Petitioners filed yesterday an urgent motion asking the Supreme Court to hold in abeyance the internment of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB).

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) expressed alarm over reports that preparations for the late dictator’s burial are underway.

The NUPL said that the high court’s decision issued Nov. 8 is not yet final and executory.

Petitioners are invoking their right to due process as they, as well as that of other human rights violations victims, will be seeking the reversal of the SC’s decision.

The NUPL said that the hasty interment of Marcos Sr. at the LNMB will render moot the motion for reconsideration yet to be filed by petitioners. Petitioners have yet to receive the official copy of the high court’s decision allowing a hero’s burial for Marcos.

“The hasty interment of Marcos’ remains will result in a grave and irreparable injury to the people’s rights as it will send the message that the late dictator, criminal manipulator of the justice system, human rights violator, and plunderer was a hero, politically reversing the many decisions of the Supreme Court, the judgment of the people in EDSA and history,” the NUPL said in its urgent motion.

The human rights lawyers further argued that the remains of Marcos Sr. have long been interred for two decades in a crypt in Ilocos Norte. “Thus, respondents will suffer no grave and irreparable injury for his burial at the Libingan pending the finality of the decision,” the group said.

The group also called on their colleagues, bar examinees and law students to wear black on November 13, Sunday. Dubbed as ‘Black to Block’, NUPL Chairperson Neri Colmenares said the protest “is an “occasion for members and aspiring members of the legal profession to call for the rule of justice, even as they grieve it’s death when the Court distorted the people’s verdict against Marcos and scorned at their history of suffering and sacrifice during the Martial Law.”