De Lima warns against deleterious impact of SC Marcos burial ruling

Sen. Leila M. de Lima has warned the Supreme Court (SC) against the deleterious impact of its Nov. 8 ruling that allowed a hero's burial to the late president Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) in Taguig City.

De Lima, one of the petitioners to the Marcos burial case, filed a Motion for Reconsideration before the SC last Nov. 29, citing two grounds where the High Tribunal grossly erred in its decision allowing the former dictator a hero's burial.

"What is being attempted with the Marcos burial is not the vindication of Marcos alone but the exoneration of each and every plunderer, thief, murderer, human rights violator, and torturer in government since the death of Marcos," she said.

"Burying Marcos at the Libingan is not moving on and uniting the nation. It is moving on, but only for crooks, trapos, cheats, and all other villains in public office, because the burial will justify every immoral and unlawful act that these public officials have done," she added.

In her 10-page motion, the former Justice Secretary explained that the guidelines of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), contained in AFP Regulations 161-375, used by the High Court on the Marcos burial case are "incomplete, whimsical, and capricious."

"In its Decision, the Honorable Court has chosen to turn its back on this historic mandate vested upon it by the post-dictatorship EDSA 1987 Constitution-with singular task of ensuring that such dictatorship and thievery is never honored again and does not make a comeback in this country," she said.

De Lima, a lawyer by profession, also argued that the High Court should reconsider its decision in view of its long line of rulings that held the former dictator and his family accountable for the accumulation of ill-gotten wealth.

"A Decision in this case will only deprive his skeleton a cold crypt at the LNMB, and his family the satisfaction that they have once again cheated the Filipino people of their collective honor as the patrimony of a nation," she said.

"Ferdinand Marcos has been rendered the highest possible conviction ever- the judgment of a people given a free and public expression as a direct act of their sovereignty, through an exceptional gesture of a revolutionary people's uprising," she added.

The Senator from Bicol also said she refuses to accept what she called "moral relativism" and "historical revisionism" being imposed upon the Filipino people by the present administration to cleanse itself of its own record of human rights violations.

The administration, she continued, is also attempting "to exonerate its own legacy of the murder of thousands in advance in the name of his national purge which he led us to believe is a war on drugs."

"This is how a nation falls into the trap of forgetting its past and losing its soul to the perpetuation of lies," she said.

De Lima pointed out that the rash of street protests against the SC's ruling on Marcos burial serves as "the nation's soul" after the Court failed to fulfill its mandate of protecting and defending the Constitution.