Despite public opposition, Ferdinand Marcos, the late president of the Philippines, has been buried at a heroes’ cemetery in the capital in a ceremony shrouded in secrecy” —Al Jazeera English.
“This is but the latest deception in a long series of lies: denying the Marcos family’s numerous crimes, corrupting the legal system, and erasing 30 years of Philippine history, among others. In this, the President has placed the Marcoses, who now revel in their impunity, above this country.
President Rodrigo Duterte, you can bury a dictator, but you cannot bury the truth” —Bukluran UP System.
“Today, the Supreme Court Justices who collaborated in this disgrace see the naked contempt in which the Marcoses hold the institution in which they serve. The Armed Forces have been forced to hold vigil for a former commander-in-chief they rose to reject a tyrant. Only a police general took charge where no military general had the gall to show their face; and even as the Palace pretended to be ignorant, the resources and timing of this act shows a partnership united in contempt for the people yet fearful of public opinion. So Marcos is now in the Libingan ng mga Bayani: where his remains will have to be permanently guarded against the people. As he lived, so he lies: protected with bayonets, the lord of deception, a permanent affront to a nation he tried to make into his personal kingdom. In life and death, Marcos is forever a thief” —Black and White Movement.
“Swiftly and in secret, as in a crime, or an act of shame. No true hero deserves such subterfuge. Savor then, the emptiness of rituals, hollow not hallowed. There shall be no silence, no sleep. And only the angry will move on” —Floy Quintos.
“Until the end, Marcos stole. His fake hero’s burial is a stolen moment” —Sen. Ana Theresia Hontiveros.
“In life and in death, forever a thief” —Edwin Lacierda.
“Longest serving president Ferdinand Marcos was sneakily buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani earlier today, around noontime. The Duterte administration ensured that no information was leaked to the public until it was too late” —Superficial Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines.
“He is no hero. If he were, obviously his family would not have had to hide his burial like a shameful criminal deed” —Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo.
“How could airlifting the remains of the late dictator into a sudden, almost-secret funeral constitute victory? In the same manner that Marcos kept the Senate presidency in 1963, as reported by Nick Joaquin. Just do the unthinkable, break every tradition and rule if you have to. Never mind what people say now, just win” —Manuel Quezon III.
“Like a thief in the night, Marcos declared martial law in 1973. Like a thief in the night, he is being buried today. It is the Marcos style all over again.
We condemn this latest assault on justice by the Marcos cabal. We call on the people to take to the streets and rage!” —Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang
“This is such a sinister move, to bury former president Marcos as secretly and quickly as possible. The manner by which he was buried speaks for itself” —Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV.
“We will never falter in our call to make the Marcos family accountable for the atrocities they caused on the Filipino people” —Philippine Collegian.
“Closure will not be the result of this burial since the administration and the Marcos family have only reopened the wounds caused by the abuses, tortures, killings and thefts perpetrated under the dictatorship. All the more will there be rifts and divisiveness. In addition, the Philippines has become a global laughingstock, having buried in a heroes’ cemetery a once-ousted kleptocrat and dictator” —Sen. Francis Pangilinan.
“The burial of Marcos symbolically accords recognition of Marcos’ heroism and the moral integrity of his presidency. We condemn this legal hullabaloo because Marcos is a plunderer, dictator, and the worst human rights violator in the history of our nation. History has already judged Marcos. No law or jurisprudence can nullify that! Those who say that Marcos is not convicted of major crimes alleged against him and therefore has no culpability are merely turning a blind eye to the multitude of testimonies of victims and their families, the hundreds of documented historical records, the multiple international courts that remember his egregious crimes” —Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy.
“Should those opposed to the Marcos burial at the Libingan allow healing and just move on, as so many, including the Supreme Court, have said? That is one way of looking at it. But there is a mistaken sense of proportion here, and a twisted sense of justice. There are ten thousand people, a conservative count, who were victims of human rights abuses and US$10 billion estimated to have been stolen by the Marcos family, of which the Presidential Commission on Good Government says it has already recovered half. They are being told to move on and bury the past. The accused, who have refused to acknowledge the sins and return the loot, refused to bury their dead for 27 years. Why are the victims the ones who must move on, while the Marcos family gets its way? So really, who should move on and allow healing? The thousands who were victimized? The prosecutors still looking for another five billion dollars in hidden wealth? Or a family that chooses to ignore all this by funding a macabre quarter-century spectacle at the family mausoleum in Ilocos because it simply insists that the patriarch be buried a hero. Who is really holding the nation hostage here? And so, really, who should move on?” —Ed Lingao
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