When you have the law on your side, you don’t have to explain yourself so much. When you don’t, you’ll have to perform the most complicated of verbal acrobatics to justify your actions—but you still won’t sound convincing.
I caught a part of the speech of Mariz Diokno, the resigned chairman of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, at last Wednesday’s rally at the People Power Monument. And I confirmed from Diokno herself how difficult it is for some people to justify their protest against the Supreme Court decision allowing the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani.
According to Diokno, the Supreme Court “allowed” the burial of Marcos at LNMB, which is correct. From that premise, however, she proceeded to say that the court did not say that Marcos “should” be interred there, at the cemetery of his choice.
She lost me right there. In my simple mind, if the high court allowed the burial, then there would no longer be any impediment for it to happen, right?
The conclusion should be that Marcos can now get his wish to be buried where he wanted, because it is allowed by no less an authority than the high court. After all, why in the world wouldn’t the former dictator be interred where he wished, if that was what the law and the court allowed?
Perhaps this is the “higher ground” that Diokno said President Rodrigo Duterte should have taken on the issue, in the resignation letter that she wrote earlier in the week. But for argument’s sake, let’s try to see what the view from Diokno’s elevated position looks like.
Duterte ordered the burial after promising to do exactly that during the campaign period. This plan was, in turn, upheld by the tribunal after it studied the seven petitions that were filed against the burial in a 9-5 vote, with one justice abstaining.
There is no question that both the Marcos family and Duterte wanted the burial. And after finding no legal or procedural impediment to the plan, the court allowed it, so it happened.
But for Diokno, from her elevated moral position, wanting to do something is not the same as actually doing it, never mind if the highest court in the land has already allowed it. To justify her semantic contortions, she creates a false dichotomy, wherein being allowed to do something you want to do doesn’t mean you should actually do it, never mind if both the law and the court say you can do just that.
Of course, I get that what Diokno really wants is for Duterte and the Marcoses to bow to the will of those who want to prevent the burial, even if the latter lost their bid to stop it in court. Diokno and her fellow protesters are really saying that they’re the ones who should get what they want, even if they failed to convince Malacanang and the Supreme Court (not to mention all other Filipinos who don’t see it their way) that they were in the right.
I know the logic is very convoluted, to say nothing of being thoroughly elitist, minority and Yellow. As I’ve already said, the people who are hell-bent on transforming the Marcos burial issue into something other than a legal dispute that can be (and has already been) settled by the Supreme Court are just looking for a justification after the fact of their sorry loss.
That, and the fact that the forces that still can’t get over Duterte’s victory over their highly-touted and infinitely better-funded candidate now want to use the Marcos burial issue as an excuse to remove the president. This is why no matter what Duterte says or does, he will always be pilloried by some people who just can’t accept defeat at the hands of the majority in a democratic election last May.
That said, I’m truly glad that Diokno is no longer in her old post as the country’s top official historian. I can’t imagine what else she applies her twisted Yellow logic to in such an important cultural position.
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I also agree with those who opined that the rally against the burial of a supposed thief last Wednesday was marred by the presence of some top officials of the old Aquino administration—including those who also stand accused of massive corruption themselves. And the arrival of Senator Leila de Lima, who may soon be jailed and found guilty of so many crimes, including receiving millions from drug lords to fund her Senate campaign, really ruined the rally for me.
At this point, I believe, you could even argue that De Lima is at least as corrupt as Marcos himself, who was never convicted of any crime and who can no longer be convicted of anything, since he died 27 years ago. De Lima, on the other hand, could face a very long prison term for corruption, extortion, obstruction of justice and even adultery.
Then there was Mar Roxas, who, as far as I know was never part of any of the anti-Marcos movements born since the declaration of martial law in 1972. (It’s true that Roxas’ father Gerry was a prominent political enemy of Marcos; but his son was never an anti-Marcos activist or human rights victim – nor will he ever be.)
But what’s a Yellow rally without Roxas, the big loser to Duterte last May, anyway? Because that’s what it really was: a rally of losers, both in court and at the polls, still mistakenly believing that they constitute the majority and possess a monopoly of truth, justice and everything else that is good.
