by Ram Maxey
PEOPLE are still talking about the issue of the request of the Marcos family for the late dictator’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. If the general who was allegedly involved in corruption in the military, Angelo Reyes, was buried at the LNMB after he committed suicide, why should the body of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos not avail of the same privilege?
Why, indeed? I, myself, can’t understand why Reyes was entitled to a plot in the LNMB which has been reserved only for Filipino heroes—in war or peace. Was he a hero?
The Marcos family believes (albeit with tongue in cheek) that their patriarch had accomplished much more than Reyes ever did, ergo, should be buried at the LNMB. Hopefully, not beside Reyes.
Was Marcos a war hero as his family and other adulators insist? His claim of having organized the Maharlika guerrilla unit, along with its alleged heroic battlefield exploits against the Japanese Imperial army, has been debunked by the United States’ military historians. I had two classmates in Surigao High, Uldarico Calinawan and Pepito Zerda, who are buried at the LNMB. They fought the Japanese in Bataan and were in the Death March that followed. They are my heroes. Not Marcos.
The recent Social Weather Station (SWS) survey on the issue of Marcos’ burial showed 50 percent of respondents opting for an LNMB burial for Marcos while 49 percent oppose it.
I’m sure that if such a survey was made in 1989 after the death of Marcos in Hawaii, the result would have been a resounding “NO”. Just goes to show how the passing of time affects people’s perception of what constitutes right or wrong. Has the passing of two decades turned what was “wrong” at the time into “right” today? Of course not. But it certainly has affected in a strange way people’s memory. Should those who were considered traitors at the time of the Edsa revolt, as exemplified by the Marcos family et al, be regarded today as national heroes?
I question the motive, if not mentality, of the 204 congressmen who voted in favor of the resolution allowing the dictator’s burial at the LNMB. I wonder which of our own three Davao City representatives were among the 204. Where were they during the dark days of the dictatorship? I do know where I was.
I was walking one evening on my way to my sister’s residence in Marfori Heights in the late ‘70s when constabulary men aboard a jeep stopped and ordered me to get in the vehicle and took me to where the San Pedro police station is located today and put me behind bars along with several tattooed individuals who were asleep on the cement floor. That was the longest night in my life standing and holding on to the iron bars and staring out into the darkness until sunrise, afraid to accidentally touch any of the sleeping detainees—“or else” warned the guard on duty. And to think that over at the barracks slept Lt. Col. Constantino Leva, a schoolmate of mine in Surigao High, who was the PC commander. Cell phones were in the future yet, so I could not txt or call him for help.
After I was released in the morning, I went straight to his quarters and told him about my ordeal. He broke into loud laughter and offered me breakfast before ordering his driver to take me home in his jeep. But that’s another story.
I say NO to any attempt to bury Marcos at the LNMB.
