Sneak burial

Like the millions of decent Filipinos, I was shocked, saddened and enraged by the treacherous and sneak burial of the remains of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos last November 18 at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

All pretenses of decency and civility were brazenly thrown to the trash can by the Marcoses as they heaped the final insult to the Filipino people and the Supreme Court whose nine justices would have still ruled in their favor in the pending motion for reconsideration. But like thieves in the night, the Marcoses could not wait, afraid that a normal burial of a “hero” could be blocked by millions of protesters.

Yet, my personal sadness and anger disappeared as I realized that in the evening of November 18, protest actions erupted in all major cities of the country, especially in the National Capital Region. Students from various universities and colleges in Metro Manila went out of their classes and defiantly shouted in the streets “Marcos diktador; Duterte tuta”!!

Before this sneak Marcos burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, I was thinking that the millennials may have been glued to their tablets and have become apathetic and indifferent to social and political issues. But I was mistaken. The mass actions last November 18 were led by young students – people who had not experienced the horrors of the Marcos dictatorship.

The youth are no longer apathetic and they have listened to philosopher Edmund Burke who said that “the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” The sneak burial of the dictator has backfired. The Filipino people have been enraged. The youth have now taken their destiny into their hands. The Marcoses may have succeeded in furtively and deceitfully putting the body (or any waxen remains) of the dictator at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, but theirs is a pyrrhic victory.

Recently, President Duterte in Peru urged the Filipino people to just forgive the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. To those who have not suffered and endured the brutalities and the unspeakable crimes committed by the Marcos dictatorship, it is so easy to forgive and forget the past.

But what about the more than 70,000 who were arrested and detained, the families of 32,507 killed, 55,000 tortured and thousands who became desaparecidos? Indeed, according to rated writer Raissa Robles, “Marcos’ regime was a grisly one-stop butcher shop for human rights abuses”?

President Duterte forgets that there can be no forgiveness or reconciliation without justice. For how can the nation forgive the late strongman when even his heirs, notably Imelda and Ferdinand, Jr., had never apologized to the people for the crimes of the dictator? Most of all, no justice can be achieved unless the family’s stolen wealth now hidden in Swiss banks to the tune of billions of U.S. dollars, be returned to the Philippine government.

The dream of the Marcoses, President Duterte and the nine Supreme Court justices for Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani to achieve national unity and reconciliation will turn into a nightmare.-from Democrito C. Barcenas