WHY I FAVOR FERDINAND MARCOS TO BE BURIED IN THE

LIBINGAN NG MGA BAYANI (2017a)

Rolando M. Gripaldo
11 January 2017

[Note: If you cannot click the reference, copy and paste it in google to view.]

There are people who are against this particular burial and they have expressed their
opinions. I am one of those who are in favor, and I think I have to express my opinion likewise.
(1) The legal provision is explicit: one is qualified to be buried in the Libingan ng mga
Bayani if (a) he was a soldier or (b) he was a Filipino president. The spirit of this provision is
that the person buried in this kind of cemetery must be inspirational or someone to be emulated.
(There were, of course, cases where a national artist, not a soldier or president, was buried in this
cemetery.)
(2) Ferdinand Marcos was indeed a soldier. He fought against the Japanese during WWII.
He was wounded and was in a hospital. Jose P. Laurel, the President during the Japanese
Occupation, who knew his (Marcos) whereabouts, tried to protect him from being known by the
Kempetai. Marcos received a military medal for his wartime activities, a medal of valor. Some
would say, two or three medals are documented, although these are contested. In this respect,
Marcos was a hero, although President Rodrigo Duterte says it does not matter. The fact is,
Marcos was a soldier.
(3) There is a lot of fuss about Marcos’s other medals because most were based on
affidavits. It was alleged Marcos was the head of a certain office that was influential in
producing these affidavits from various sources. The implication is that the affidavits were all
false or fabricated. There was no honest-to-goodness examination as to the veracity of affidavits.
Assuming, without granting, that the affidavits are false, which may be attributed to political
reasons because Marcos was aiming at the presidency and would like to show the electorates of
his many medals, then the eradication or obliteration of these medals does not negate the fact that
Marcos was a soldier during WWII and who received at least one documented medal (see
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/580477/news/nation/marcosachievements-ssoldier-not-
diminished-by-ouster-gov-t-lawyer).
(4) There was also a fuss about Marcos’s guerrilla outfit, the Maharlika. Many
contemporary historians debunked this guerilla outfit, but they did not interview some prominent
members of this guerilla unit which were first-hand informants. There was Col. Frisco San Juan,
Teodulo C. Natividad, and Col. Agustin Marking. Marking’s wife even wrote a book.
(5) Part of the demolition of Marcos’s war records is that the US war archives do not
have a dossier on the Maharlika. This is quite interesting because there is so much reliance on the
US military archives. It seems that all military records during WWII in the Philippines are in the
US military archives. Don’t we have our own military records that are not limited to existing so-
called Philippine military records? Why don’t we collect other military records and
independently evaluate them, regardless of what the US military records say? This is important
because when I was doing a research on the life, works, and political activities of President
Manuel Luis Quezon, many of the items in the Quezon Papers are not found in the US libraries
or archives.True there were papers in the US archives but they did not contain all the records in
the Quezon Papers. In fact, most of my findings debunk the US interpretation of Quezon as a
Janus-faced politician (see my writings on Quezon in www.academia.edu and, particularly,
https://www.academia.edu/32728680/A_SECOND_LOOK_AT_THE_JANUS-FACED_

1
QUEZON_2017a_). It seems that history can be revised after a thorough study of the materials
during a given period. We have not examined and evaluated the Marcos Papers as of this time,
yet.
(6) What about Marcos as president? Marcos was doing well as president except that
during the last years of his second term, there were a lot of radical activism from the left
(communists or the CCP-NPA-NDF, some radical-nonleft students and groups, and the political
opposition). They constituted generally the active radical majority during the time. Compared to
the total population of the country, this radical majority is a minority. They threatened to create
chaos and anarchy. One important event was the bombing in Plaza Miranda, which was
attributed to both Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Sr. and Jose Maria Sison. There was apparently a
meeting between Ninoy and Nur Misuari’s group (MNLF) to foment secession from the south.
[Misuari trained in Malaysia, which—after the so-called Jabidah Massacre in 1968—
Congressman Rashid Lucman, through the invitation of Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman,
recruited Misuari as one of the top 90 Bangsa Moro fighters.] There was the bombing of the US
embassy; there was an attempt to assassinate the First Lady; and so on. Anyway, there was an
impending anarchy and a threat to the security of the nation from the communists (see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfsj-UUttXU/). If Sison won, he would destroy the political
opposition and we would become a communist country. If Ninoy won, he would destroy the
communists and even intimated that he would himself declare Martial Law (see RigobertoTiglao
as a communist in http://www.manilatimes.net/what-marcos-prisonswere-really-like/287883/).
(7) When Marcos declared Martial Law, he did not do it without consulting various
sectors of society, especially Congress and the Supreme Court. It was to address the impending
anarchy and disorder and ensure the protection of the nation from the communists (see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkS7yn2Cr88). In the process, of course, he would clamp
down on some prominent members of the political opposition; the communists; the radical
radios, newspapers, and television stations; radical nonleft students; and the like. Any president,
not necessarily Marcos, who would declare Martial Law (like Ninoy Aquino or whoever) to
protect the national security and to blunt the impending takeover by the communists, should be
worthy of emulation. Marcos was only an incidental president who was there at the right
situation, at the right time, and at the right moment.
(8) There are other issues during Martial Law. There were the so-called extrajudicial
killings or “Salvagings,” tortures, disappearances, and the Marcos ill-gotten wealth.
(9) There appear to be flaws in the implementation procedure of Martial Law, and there
are those who thought that all these (extra-judicial killings, “Salvagings,” tortures, and
disappearances) should be blamed to Marcos. I am not of the opinion that Marcos ordered all
these and that he knew everything about these prior to their occurrences. Definitely, there were
some abuses among the ranks of the implementers. But who were the implementers? Who was
the Secretary/Minister of National Defense? Who was the Philippine Constabulary (later
Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police) Chief? Who was the Secretary of the Local
Government and Community Development? Who was the NISA Chief? And so on. If there were
abuses, these implementers should be blamed, and not necessarily Marcos. There were tortures
and abuses at Guantanamo prison in Cuba, but we do not blame President Barach Obama for all
these.
(10) Let us take a contemporary scenario, the current war against drugs. Although
Duterte ordered to capture or shoot the drug lords, pushers, or even the addicts, there was always
the qualification that it should be in self-defense. And General Ronald de la Rosa (General Bato)

2
was clear: he was against extrajudicial killings and abuses by the police. He was against the
killings by the vigilantes, especially, those committed by riders in tandem (see
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/582439/news/metro/two-men-get-killed-after-theyshot-
drug-suspect-in-pasig). When the right complaint and pieces of evidence come out, then Bato
was willing to file charges against the abusive or erring policemen. We do not blame everything
that happens to drug personalities to Duterte but to the implementers (and in fact to some drug
people involved in the drug trade competition).
(11) The same is true with Marcos and the implementers of Martial Law. I am surprised:
why is there apparently no mention about blaming these implementers? We try to ignore them
and conveniently blame everything to Marcos. (It is instructive to read Tiglao’s version of
Martial Law abuses? See http://www.rigobertotiglao.com/2016/02/28/why-not-ask-ramos-and-
enrile-about-martial-law-abuses/ and http://www.manilatimes.net/ramos-apologize-martial-law-
abuses/296752/; see also Ramon Tulfo’s version: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/847378/fvr-alo-to-
blame-for-martial-law-abuses.)
(12) There are witnesses that Marcos the strongman was not really that bloodthirsty. He
ordered the clamping down of those who wanted to sow anarchy, but he did not wish to harm
them unless they turned violent and aggressive. If they are salvaged or disappeared, then blame
the implementers and correspondingly their respective heads. One great evidence of this desire
not to harm people was the so-called 1986 Revolution. Marcos told the military and police to
disperse the crowd but not to shoot them. That is why the so-called 1986 People Power
Revolution succeeded. In Tian An Men Square, communist leaders ordered the military to
disperse the crowd by shooting at them. So the Tian An Men Square People Power Revolution
failed.
(13) At any rate, the victims of the abuses of the military and police during Martial Law,
when fully determined, should be duly compensated. But this is a civil case and not a criminal
case where the soldier is disqualified to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
(14) What about the Marcos ill-gotten wealth? There are contentions that these were not
ill-gotten but the gold existed (that is in 1950) even before Marcos became a president. Why do
we settle on the five- or ten billion-dollar wealth when Marcos was offering the entire wealth to
the Filipino people through a Marcos Foundation? Before Marcos died in Hawaii, Vice President
Salvador Laurel went to see Marcos who instructed him to tell President Corazon Aquino to
allow him to return and be buried beside his mother’s tomb. He also offered his whole wealth to
the Filipino nation through a Marcos Foundation (see https://phshockinghistory. wordpress.
com/2016/01/16/from-the-lips-of-a-dying-president-ferdinand-marcos/). Cora Aquino did not
heed Laurel, and instead excavated some grounds in search for the Marcos gold. The Presidential
Commission on Good Government (PCGG) tried to retrieve the so-called Marcos wealth. They
ended up with a few million dollars (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XUgQjFmbCU).
It may be true that the economy was bad during Martial Law but this was just the case because
the state of lawlessness and the MNLF rebellion were present, and the economy could hardly
move, although interestingly, the general economic index (average GDP growth rate) at 5.6%
was higher compared to the Cory Aquino’s (3.4%) and Fidel Ramos’s (3.5%) presidency (see
Tiglao’s http://www.manilatimes.net/helped-by-communists-oligarchs-demonized-marcos-to-
conceal-their-rule/288251/ and http://asianjournal.com/editorial/virata-and-technocrats-ran-the-
martial-law-economy/).
(15) In the meantime, we heard about these gold and currency deposits in 700 banks
worldwide through the testimony of Atty. Karen Hudes (see https://www.youtube.

3
com/watch?v=HtUrS55QRPA/). Imelda Marcos even showed the many documents (US
government exhibits) which were presented during her trials in the US which amounted to so
many billions of dollars. This prompted President George Bush Sr., when asked, to say that the
Philippines is the richest nation in the whole world. Imelda tried to ask the senators to get hold of
this wealth through a Marcos Humanitarian Foundation, but the senators at the time were asking
about other matters. Imelda said this wealth consisted of settled cases in the US court, but she
had still hundreds of cases in various courts (see https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=dj9Ln4bSios). Why not accept this wealth on settled cases?
(16) Before we ask questions about the origin of this wealth [and the explanations so far
are apparently rubbish, although there are some leads to follow (see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgBx8d9k5oY)], let us first accept this wealth through the
Marcos Humanitarian Foundation for the benefit of the Filipino people. Even if we assume that
Marcos took this wealth from the Filipino people, even including the Yamashita treasure taken
supposedly from Rogelio Roxas (who is entitled under Philippine laws to receive 25% of the
treasure finds), the fact is that this wealth is returned to us, the Filipino people. Why don’t we
become practical and accept it immediately? Some friends I asked regarding the origin of this
wealth said if this wealth truly existed and for the benefit of the Filipino people, who cares?
Historians care, and to be pragmatic let us leave the origin of this wealth to genuine, objective
historians of the future.
(17) The return and burial of Marcos in Batac, Ilocos Norte, was governed by an
agreement between the government of President Fidel Ramos and the Marcos family. President
Duterte is not a party to that agreement.
(18) In the interest of reconciliation, if we have forgotten the atrocities of the Japanese
during World War II after only less than a decade, then, after thirty years, let us bury Marcos to
the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Let us forgive the implementers of Martial Law and their flaws. Let
us forget the pain and sufferings brought about by the abuses during Martial Law. But let us not
forget the event—the series of circumstances and causes that led to the declaration of Martial
Law—so that we can learn from that event and prevent its eventual reoccurrence.
(19) Since the Supreme Court has decided to allow the burial of Marcos in the Libingan
ng mga Bayani, saying that there is no law that prohibits the burial of the former president, and
since it has rejected the appeal to reconsider its decision (see http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/
861244/sc-denies-petition-vs-marcos-burial-at-libingan), then what is left for the senators is to
accept the Marcos wealth through the Marcos Humanitarian Foundation for the sake and in the
interest of the Filipino people. That is the wish of the late President Marcos. And that is also the
desire of those who are against Marcos and Martial Law—to return to the people the Marcos
wealth.

(end)