Fil-Ams want closure in Marcos burial issue–Binay

The Filipino-American community in the United States expects the Aquino administration to “provide final closure” to the issue of Ferdinand Marcos’ burial, according to Vice President Jejomar C. Binay.

Binay, who returned to Manila early Sunday from an official trip to the US, said the Fil-Ams also “expressed hope (the issue) would be resolved soon.”

Still, he said, they “expressed appreciation for our effort to provide final closure to the Marcos burial issue.”

Binay, also the administration’s housing czar and presidential adviser on overseas Filipino workers’ concerns, had earlier recommended to President Aquino that Marcos be buried in his hometown in Ilocos Norte, instead of at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, and be given full military honors.

Mr. Aquino has since said that there will definitely be no Libingan grave for Marcos, but he has yet to act on Binay’s recommendation.

Mr. Aquino had tasked Binay to study the matter of what to do about Marcos after calls were made to finally bury the late dictator in the heroes’ cemetery.

A militant organization has urged the President to reject the proposal to bury Marcos with military honors in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

The Burgos Media Center, a group of concerned Filipinos working in alternative and corporate media, said that Mr. Aquino’s statement ruling out the late dictator’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani was a welcome development, but burying him with full military honors as Binay suggested was still tantamount to burying him in the heroes’ cemetery in Taguig City.

“Honoring a dictator and major enemy of press freedom… (is a slap on the faces of President Aquino’s) parents who experienced gross human rights violations during martial law, and to the members of the press and the Filipino people who toppled the dictatorship,” said Marc Joseph Alejo, BMC spokesperson, in a statement.

Burying him with military honors would be the same as treating him as a hero for his crimes against the people and the suppression of press freedom, added Alejo, also editor in chief of The Trinity Observer, student publication of the Trinity University of Asia.

“We cannot simply forget the past for the sake of a so-called reconciliation today—which in reality would be nothing but a compromise between ruling factions for political expediency,” Alejo said. With a report from Kristine Felisse Mangunay