MALACAÑANG on Saturday said it would welcome any petition before the Supreme Court questioning President Rodrigo Duterte’s authority to allow the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo made the remark as former President Fidel Ramos explained that the only reason Marcos was not buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani was because the “wounds of the 1986 People Power Revolution was still fresh at that time.”
“We welcome any move but law is very clear that the former President is entitled to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, as a soldier and as a former President,” Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo told reporters.
“We will respect any decision of High Court,” Panelo said as anti-Marcos groups threatened to petition the Supreme Court to stop Marcos’ burial at the national cemetery.
On the other hand, Ramos, who was one of the three leaders of the 1986 revolution, said one of the key considerations when he allowed the return of Marcos’ body to the Philippines in 1992, three years after his death in 1989, was possible destabilization.”
During our time 1992 to 1998, you must understand that we allowed the remains of the late President Marcos to return to the Philippines under certain conditions because of the possible destabilization of the country unless there were certain safeguards adopted. You will recall that he died in 1989, he came in 1992, [the] wounds of the People Power Revolution of 1986 which ejected the Marcos Martial Regime [were still fresh], “ he added.
“So we were very careful enough to make sure that the welfare of the people of the Philippines would be protected by the prevention of any angry or tension-filled peoples’ movement,” Ramos stressed.
The former president also added they decided to allow the return of Marcos’ body as they believed that the latter should not be forever detained in Hawaii since it is not his homeland.
The four conditions set by the then Ramos government in exchange for the return of the remains of the former president were: that it would be flown straight from Hawaii to Paoay, Ilocos Norte; that he would be given honors befitting a major in the AFP, because it was his last rank in the AFP; that he would not be paraded in Metro Manila because at that time anti-Marcos sentiments were still fresh; and that he would be buried in Ilocos Norte, not in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Ramos said these conditions were explained to the Marcos family, who were then represented by Ilocos Norte Rep. Roquito Ablan and former First Lady Imelda Marcos, by then Interior and Local Government Secretary Rafael Alunan III.
