Late dictator to be buried in Heroes' Cemetery

The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday has allowed to transfer the preserved remains of late president Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. from the Marcos mausoleum in Ilocos Norte to the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes' Cemetery) in Taguig City.

9-5 in favor of burial (Infographic by Philippine Daily Inquirer)

With a 9-5 vote, Associate Justices Arturo Brion, Presbitero Velasco Jr, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano del Castillo, Jose Perez, Teresita de Castro, Jose Mendoza, and Estela Perlas-Bernabe were in favor of giving him a hero's burial.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, and Associate Justices Marvic Leonen, Francis Jardeleza, and Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa voted to disagree on the proposal.

Associate Justice Bienvenido Reyes inhibited from the case.

Duterte's promise

Ferdinand Marcos was the 10th president of the Republic of the Philippines, from 1965 to 1986. He declared martial law in 1972 that lasted until 1981. He was ousted in 1986 after the People Power Revolution. His wife Imelda Marcos and their children Imee Marcos and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. remained active in politics.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte promised the family that the late dictator's remains will be buried in Taguig City if he were to be elected as president.

Imelda Marcos kisses her husband's air conditioned
glass coffin displayed at the Marcos Mausoleum
(Photo from Reuters)

“Because he was a great president and he was a hero…He had the idealism, the vision for this country,” Duterte said during an ambush interview by Rappler on February 19.

“We all have our faults. Every human being [is] fit to fail…People see nothing but mistakes. People judge best when they condemn. You are at your best element when you are speaking ill of your fellow man,” he added.

Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. was a vice presidential candidate along with the late senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, who lost the elections with the lowest votes. He was catching up after a slim disadvantage behind incumbent Vice President Leni Robredo.

The president and the Marcos family believes that the burial of the late dictator's remains at the Libingan ng mga Bayani will lead to "national healing."

Human rights abuse survivors of the Marcos regime and petitioners alike argue otherwise that his burial is a matter of historical revisionism to deodorize the kleptocracy and the brutality of Marcos' administration. 

70,000 people were imprisoned and 34,000 were tortured, while 3,240 were killed during Martial Law from 1972 to 1981 according to Amnesty International.

SC Decision

Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te laid out the points that the justices used to explain their decision.

First, there was no grave abuse of discretion on the part of President Duterte in ordering the burial of late dictator Marcos at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani. It means that the proposal was based on facts and the law because this was done in the exercise of his mandate under Article 7, Section 17 of the 1987 Constitution..

Article 7 "Executive Department," Section 17 of the 1987 Constitution states that "The President shall have control of all the executive departments, bureaus, and offices. He shall ensure that the laws be faithfully executed."

Second, no law blocks his burial at the Heroes' Cemetery. The President has a power to reserve for specific public purposes the lands of public domain. The reserved land remains subjected to a specific public purpose as indicated. 

The Court found that there is no law or executive issuance at present that specifically excludes the land on which the Heroes' Cemetery is located from the use it was originally intended by the previous presidents.

Third, Marcos is qualified to be buried at the Heroes' Cemetery and was not in any way disqualified. He was said to be a former president, a former commander-in-chief, former soldier, a Medal of Valor awardee, former legislator, and Secretary of National Defense.

Fourth, the Court disagreed that he was dishonorably discharged as this particular disqualification pertains only to the military covered under the Articles of War and specifically those in the active service. 

He was also not prosecuted before a court martial. His ouster during the EDSA Revolution is "an extra-constitutional and direct sovereign act of the people which is beyond the ambit of judicial review, let alone a mere administrative regulation," the ponencia reads.

Moreover, he was honorably discharged from the military service as he was recognized as a retired veteran by the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO).

Fifth, Marcos was not convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude. No criminal cases were filed by petitioners that convicted him of moral turpitude and most cases were civil in nature.

Moral turpitude refers to conduct that is not acceptable in a community's standards of honesty, justice, and good morals.

According to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Regulation 161-375, those who cannot be interred at the Libingan ng mga Bayani are "personnel who were dishonorably separated/reverted/discharged from the service" and "personnel who were convicted by final judgment of an offense involving moral turpitude."

The Marcos family has not yet decided upon the date of the burial.

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