By Girlie Linao
Asia-Pacific News
Manila – With trembling hands and teary eyes, 62-year-old William Sia recalled the many friends he lost during the struggle against late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
‘We must never forget that so much blood was spilled fighting the dictator,’ the former youth activist said. ‘I’m lucky I got out alive, but many others, including friends, gave up their lives to free us from Marcos’ regime.’
Sia is among tens of thousands of victims of torture, illegal detention, disappearances and extrajudicial killings during Marcos’ 20-year rule who are opposing proposals to bury the dictator’s body at the country’s Heroes’ Cemetery.
The victims fear a hero’s burial for Marcos would boost the family’s effort to rehabilitate their name, causing Filipinos to easily forget the atrocities.
‘Throw his body somewhere else, but not at the Heroes’ Cemetery,. Please give the people buried there some dignity,’ Sia said.
Marcos, who died in exile in Hawaii in 1992, has been entombed in a refrigerated glass crypt in his hometown of Batac in Ilocos Norte province, 390 kilometres north of Manila, since 1993.
The House of Representatives passed a resolution in March seeking Marcos’ burial at the Heroes’ Cemetery for being the ‘longest-serving president’ of the Philippines and for giving ‘invaluable service to his country.’
The dictator’s son, Senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Junior, also argued for his father’s internment at the cemetery.
‘It is time to close this chapter,’ he said.
The controversial proposals prompted President Benigno Aquino III to direct Vice President Jejomar Binay to study the matter.
Last week, Binay submitted his report to Aquino and recommended full military honours for Marcos, but not a burial at the Heroes’ Cemetery, sources said. Aquino appealed to the public for more time to study the recommendations.
A nationwide survey in March showed that Filipinos were split on the controversy, with 50 per cent agreeing that Marcos should be buried in the Heroes’ Cemetery while 49 per cent saying he was not fit to be laid to rest there.
‘It would make a mockery of the horrors that the Filipino people endured during martial law,’ Bonifacio Ilagan, chairman of the First Quarter Storm Movement of anti-Marcos activists, said.
Ilagan, who was detained and tortured for two years during martial law, said the Marcoses were attempting to re-write history and take advantage of the short memories of Filipinos.
‘They want to reclaim their old glory and pursue the same policies,’ he warned.
Twenty-five years after Marcos was ousted by a popular uprising, victims of human rights violations under his rule are receiving payments for the suffering they endured then.
The money comes from a settlement in a class action suit filed against the Marcos estate by victims who were awarded nearly 2 billion dollars in compensation by a Hawaii court in 1995.
Film director Joel Lamangan was among those who received payment as reparations for torture and illegal detention.
The award-winning director said the payment proves that the Marcoses committed the abuses despite continued declarations by the family that it is innocent of the accusations.
‘It’s not the amount that counts, but it’s the symbol that it represents,’ Lamangan said of the settlement.
Lamangan said he had just finished secondary school when he was arrested in 1973 for organizing a transport strike against oil price hikes. He was kept in isolation and tortured for two weeks.
‘I was made to sit nude on a block of ice, beaten up, my genitalia were electrocuted,’ he said.
He was released two years later, but was again detained from 1977 to 1979 for joining the first rally against Marcos while he was a student at the state university.
Lamangan warned that allowing Marcos to be buried at the Heroes’ Cemetery would only support the family’s apparent intention to convince Filipinos that the dictator’s rule was ‘the best regime ever’ in the Philippines.
‘They are catering lies,’ he said. ‘And then there is the threat that Bongbong Marcos might run for president. That will be hell.’
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