SC extends SQAO on Marcos burial until October 18
The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday extended until October 18 its status quo ante order (SQAO) that stopped temporarily the burial of the late former President Ferdinand E. Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) in Taguig City.
The ruling was arrived at after yesterday’s oral arguments on the petitions that challenged President Duterte’s decision to bury Marcos’ remains at the LNMB.
The original SQAO issued by the SC would expire on Tuesday, September 13.
“After the oral arguments were concluded, the Court En Banc met and agreed to extend the Status Quo Ante Order issued on 23 August 2016 (served on 24 August, expiring on 13 September 2016) up to18 October 2016,” SC Spokesperson Theodore O. Te said.
After yesterday’s oral arguments, the SC gave the parties 20 days or until September 27 to file their respective memoranda. Thereafter, the cases will be resolved on their merits.
Representing the government in yesterday’s arguments, Solicitor General Jose C. Calida told the SC that burying Marcos at the LNMB “is not to honor him as a hero, even if by military standards he is, but to accord him the simple mortuary befitting a former President, commander-in-chief, and soldier.”
The LNMB, Calida pointed out, is not only for heroes but primarily for soldiers and statesmen. Aside from being a President. Calida argued that Marcos was a member of Congress, Senate president, and a recognized military and war veteran who was neither dishonorably discharged nor convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. Dishonorable discharge can only happen through court martial, he explained.
Civilians at LNMB As a matter of fact, he said that since April 9, 1994 Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos has been receiving P5,000 in monthly pension from the Philippine Veterans Office.
Justifying further Marcos’ burial at LNMB, Calida said “in reality” many civilians are buried at the LNMB.
“In reality now, the Libingan is a military cemetery but with certain individuals also interred there. In particular, three Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, their widows, chief of staff, as well as national artists,” Calida said.
“Even Senator Arturo Tolentino, the Vice President of Ferdinand Marcos, who was ousted in 1986, is interred at the Libingan ng mga Bayani,” he added.
In answer to questions of the justices, Calida said the government does not plan to give state honors to Marcos during the burial but “only a simple graveyard military honor.”
Calida also told the SC the controversy involving Marcos’ burial at the LNMB “is beyond the ambit of judicial review as it involves intrusion upon Executive power.”
He explained that President Duterte’s decision to allow Marcos’ burial at the LNMB is a prerogative allowed by law and the Constitution.
As the issue involves a political question, it is excluded from judicial review since it involves policy and wisdom, he added.
Political question
In his earlier comment to the petitions, Calida said the petitioners’ arguments “readily reveals the political, and, hence, non-justiciable nature of the petitions.”
“In essence, petitioners assail the wisdom behind President Duterte’s decision to inter the remains of a former President at the LNMB, made pursuant to the Constitution, laws, rules and regulations,” he said.
The solicitor general stressed that the “term political question connotes a question of policy. It refers to those questions which, under the Constitution, are to be decided by the people in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full discretionary authority has been delegated to the Legislature or Executive branch of the government. It is concerned with issues dependent upon the wisdom, not legality, of a particular measure.”
“Such is the nature of the question for determination in the present case. Here, this Honorable Court is called upon to decide the wisdom behind the decision of the incumbent President to inter the remains of former President Marcos in the LNMB,” he said.
Executive prerogative
“In the exercise of his powers under the Constitution and the Administrative Code, President Duterte, in his wisdom, deems it appropriate to inter the remains of former President Marcos in a parcel of land of the public domain devoted for the purpose of being a military shrine…,” Calida argued.
“It should likewise be emphasized that President Duterte’s order to allow former President Marcos’ interment at the LNMB is based on his determination that it shall promote national healing and forgiveness, and redound to the benefit of the Filipino people. Surely, this is an exercise of his executive prerogative beyond the ambit of judicial review,” he further pointed out.
Grave abuse of discretion cannot be ascribed on the President because the basis of his decision was the Administrative Code and the Armed Forces of the Philippines regulations on burying statesmen and soldiers at the LNMB.
During the oral arguments, Calida said, “President Duterte decides to begin the long overdue healing of our nation and to exorcise the ghost of enmity and bitterness that prevent us from moving forward. Unfortunately, the wisdom and propriety of President Duterte’s well-meaning desire to put a closure in this divisive issue has pinched the nerves of some who cannot forget their travails during the martial law era.”