Erap on Marcos burial: ‘Respect the dead’
Amid the raging debate on the planned burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB), Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada has called on the people to “respect the dead” and focus instead on the bigger issues facing the country.
Estrada said the hero’s burial for the late dictator has been decided and must be respected.
“We are all Christians. We all must respect the dead. With due respect to the dead… the officials… they have already decided,” Estrada said.
“Hindi na dapat siguro pag-awayan ‘yan (we should not fight over that anymore),” Estrada commented on the growing protests over President Duterte’s decision to allow Marcos’ burial at the heroes’ cemetery.
“We are all Christians. We have to move on. Let’s devote more time on the problems of the country. Move on. Let go anything of the past,” Estrada added.
Estrada also said he sees no problem with the holding of protest rallies in Manila as long as they are peaceful and the protesters have the appropriate permits.
Real Marcos cadaver An Ilocos Norte resident, who served as altar lady at the mausoleum in Batac, Ilocos Norte where the remains of late President Ferdinand E. Marcos were interred has claimed that the cadaver inside the refrigerated crypt is “real.”
Elena Gaspar, a native of Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, belied speculations that the body in the mausoleum was not Marcos’.
She said that the physical body structure of the former strongman has not changed for more than 20 years because it is properly preserve in the freezer.
The body preservation of the late strongman is being administered by mortician Dr. Frank Malabed.
Dr. Clavel Ramos, who was one of the personal doctors of the President, affirmed that “it was a case of high blood pressure which led to complications of the kidney. His blood pressure would rise to 200 mmhg when he was still a congressman until senator; that was the main cause of his kidney disease.”
“He never had lupus and that is for certain… I do not know where the speculations that he had lupus started but it is 100 percent that he had no lupus,” Dr. Ramos said.
On the last day of the snap election in 1986, Dr. Ramos remembered that President Marcos “was sick, he had fever on the way to Hawaii. He had a fever and he was in a stretcher on the way to Hawaii.”
Dr. Ramos clarified that it was “the heart that brought him to the hospital. By that time, he already had pneumonia.”
Unifying president President Duterte should defer the Marcos burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) until the Supreme Court (SC) hands down its final ruling on the three petitions challenging his planned hero’s burial for the late dictator.
“Perhaps, as a matter of judicial courtesy, the President may defer the burial of former President Marcos. This gesture of the President will be favorable to him since, in doing so, he will remain as a unifying President of all Filipinos regardless of their position on the issue of the Marcos burial and the decision of the Supreme Court,” Deputy Speaker and Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro said.
A third petition challenging the Marcos’ burial at the LNMB was filed on Friday by former human rights commissioner Etta Rosales and members of the Coalition Against Marcos Burial before the SC.
Siquijor Rep. Rav Rocamora is vehemently opposed to Marcos’ burial at the LNMB, saying that “it only serves to open more wounds rather than heal them.”
Deputy Speaker Eric Singson and former Speaker and Quezon City Rep. Feliciano Belmonte Jr. earlier expressed confidence that the SC will “judiciously” rule on the matter in favor of public interest.
The two petitions against the Marcos burial at the LNMB were filed by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and the Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detention at Aresto (SELDA); and the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND).
The Supreme Court has scheduled an oral argument on the three petitions this week.