Accents
By Julia Carreon-Lagoc

To bury or not to bury ?

To bury or not to bury dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani has been hanging in the minds of our countrymen lately. A hovering dark cloud that will break into a downpour anytime this rainy season, to be splashed in the papers with all the hoopla that goes with the burial of a famous dead. A most infamous one is more like it.

Will Marcos whose remains are preserved frozen in his hometown Batac in Ilocos Norte since his death in 1989 finallly find repose along with Ninoy Aquino? Will a human rights violator be given a hero's burial? To bury or not to bury? That is the question—so easy of solution by one initialed GMA. To be or not to be… Let Hamlet wrack his brain and agonize in his indecision. For GMA, the decision rests simply on one ulterior motive: political gain. Throw away principles, propriety, other considerations into the garbage bin—all are useless in her craven desire to cling to power.

First, she charmed her audience of politicos with the Cha-Cha or charter change in her SONA. Second, she exhumed the old issue of burying Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani . Both controversial subjects to deflect the country's attention from the burning “Hello, Garci” tapes and the jueteng scandals that involve herself, her husband, her son, and her brother-in-law. And you wonder what Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will serve up next to occupy the mind of the Filipino people.

Many believe GMA has dangled to the Marcoses the Libingan ng mga Bayani burial in exchange for the Marcoses' political support that would strengthen her stay in Malacanang. Cheap shot! Also, to spite former President Cory Aquino who called for GMA's resignation from the presidency, Cory whose husband Ninoy was murdered during the Marcos dictatorship. Another cheap shot!

Last July 29, victims of human rights violations in the twenty-year reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos rallied in protest against the dictator's burial in what to them are hallowed grounds. The protest action was spearheaded by SELDA (Samahan ng mga Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya), MARTYR (Mothers and Relatives against Tyranny), and Panay Alliance-KARAPATAN. From the Monument for Heroes and Martyrs at Plaza Libertad, the rallyists proceeded to Plazoleta Gay to demonstrate their protest. Karapatan's Secretary General Samuel Torato wrote in a declaration given to the media: “GMA said the number 10 item in the 10-point agenda she announced in a previous state-of-the-nation address (SONA) is “healing the wounds” left by EDSA 1, EDSA 2, and EDSA 3. The victims said GMA can not heal a wound by opening another. Giving a hero's burial to a tyrannical ruler responsible for massive human rights violations and for plunging the nation to ‘dark years of martial law' is like sprinkling salt on the unhealed wounds not only of victims, but of the Filipino people as a whole.” I cannot agree more.

As a member of MARTYR, I have my own reasons to hold high the placard of protest. Flashback to September 25, 1972, a Monday, and a working day: My dear Rudy, a Labor Attorney, was typing a decision on a labor dispute in his office when he was “invited” to Fort San Pedro. For a “few” questions, the military said. The “invitation” lasted for six months of detention in the stockade and two months of house arrest.

Detained without charges. Why? Because of lawyering services to student demonstrators who pitted guts against the Marcos government? Because he was too loud, in both print and radio, opposing Statehood U.S.A.? Because he sought to educate the masses, elevate them from their deplorable situation through lectures in forums? Weren't all these within the ambit of freedom of expression? But who was he or anybody at all to reason out with the functionaries of the dictator? Questions that still burn in the mind.

For six months, it was a daily routine to bring in food and fresh laundry to the stockade in Fort San Pedro. On off-school Saturdays and Sundays, I came with the four kids in tow - Rose, Roderick, Randy, and Raileen, aged 12, 11, 9, and 7. When the children would ask why their Daddy was detained I would mention love of country and people, explaining some such abstract things as steadfastness to ideals.

Also a victim of Marcos' incarceration was my brother Simplicio Carreon, Jr. He, too, languished in the stockade in defiance of Martial Rule. And my brother Atty. Antonio Carreon of FLAG (Free Legal Assistance Group), legal counsel to victims of human rights violations, must be tossing in his grave to hear GMA's bait to the Marcoses. Another tossing in the other-life must be Edmundo Rivera Legislador, my cousin, who was killed by the military in Antique. (Toto Eddie's name is now emblazoned in the Bantayog ng mga Bayani monument in Quezon City.)

Among the marchers last Friday were those with family members who underwent torture. There were those who have “Disappearances” or Desaparecidos in the family. “Disappearances” was one of the most horrifying human rights violations of the Marcos dictatorship. Search by the relatives of the ‘disappeared' ended up with no detention records, no death notices, no graveyard, no bones. Consigned into nothingness except in the hearts of their loved ones that continue to feel the pain of their disappearance. The pain is not healed with the passage of time because no one knows what happened to the ‘disappeared.' Marius in Les Miserables has put it in a song: There's a grief that can't be spoken. There's a pain goes on and on…

To bury or not to bury Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani ? What do you say? (Comments to lagoc@hargray.com )