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BY RHICK LARS VLADIMER ALBAY
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ILOILO City – Students of Central Philippine University (CPU) held a peaceful assembly inside the campus on Nov. 16 to protest the Supreme Court’s (SC) ruling in favor of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ burial at the Libingan nga mga Bayani.
But it was all for naught. The Marcos family pushed through with the burial on Nov. 18.
“I express my profoundest dismay and eager support for the call that the late president is not rightfully and morally fit to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Marcos is not a hero,” said CPU Republic president Jayson Troy Bajar in a statement.
Among those invited to speak during the assembly were Atty. Elias Guillereza and former CPU professor Lucy Dela Fuente, mother of brothers Edward and John Dela Fuente, young Centralian activists who were killed during Marcos’ martial law.
“I thought [John] died of natural causes when we came to the morgue for his body,” recounted the 85-year-old Dela Fuente.
But she noticed signs of torture: his bloody fingernails, the bruises and scars, the boot print on his back.
“I was shocked and taken aback by the cruelty Marcos’ soldiers on my son,” said Dela Fuente.
The decision of the Supreme Court reopened the wounds of atrocities committed during the years of Martial Law, lamented Bajar.
“The SC ruling means the neglect of those who died, were tortured, electrocuted, raped and those who suffered the gravest inhumane punishment in the shadow of false justice,” he said.
In a recent online poll by the Central Echo, the official student publication of CPU, 60 percent of Centralian students who responded were disappointed by the SC ruling, while 33 percent were “satisfied” with it. Seven percent had no opinion.
The Central Echo masthead aired similar sentiments with Bajar saying: “The ruling is a great affront to the victims of Martial Law and aims to bury the atrocities of the tyrant Marcos.”
“The late dictator looted billions from the country, imprisoned, and sanctioned the torture of thousands of his critics, and is liable for the prevalence of unlawful deaths under his regime. Bury Marcos elsewhere but not in LNMB. The Libingan ng mga nayani is no place to bury the truth and the horrendous crimes of Marcos,” ended Bajar./PN
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