QUISUMBING
MANDAUE City Mayor Gabriel Luis “Luigi” Romualdez Quisumbing said he was in favor of President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision bury late president Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
“Importante gyod kaayo nga we start to move on from that fractured period in our history,” he said yesterday.
Quisumbing said the burial of Marcos was necessary in order to “heal the wounds caused by that era,” and that we cannot afford to be brought down by the past.
However, this was not the case during last Sunday’s protest at the Plaza Independencia in downtown Cebu City wherein several people including ordinary citizens and martial law victims expressed opposition to give a hero’s burial to the late president.
Lawyer Cathy Alvarez launched a signature campaign opposing the burial of Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, saying he was a dictator and not a hero.
When Marcos died in his exile in Hawaii in 1898, president Corazon Aquino refused the return of his body in the Philippines. In 1992, during the administration of former president Fidel Ramos, an agreement was made between the the government and the Marcoses that the body of the late president can only be brought back to the country on condition that there has to be no burial for Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
However, the Marcoses continued to demand his burial in Libingan ng mga Bayani despite the terms agreed in 1992.
This agreement has been disclosed recently by one of the signatories, former Interior Secretary Rafael Alunan III of Ramos administration, after Duterte has announced the schedule of the burial of Marcos. /USJ-R INTERN Dafne N. Wenceslao