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- EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar091 |Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
(SDN) — If not for then President Rodrigo R. Duterte, the ousted late President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. would have continued today to be an spectacle in his glass coffin in Batac, Ilocos Norte.
Recall that when Duterte, the former mayor of Davao City, vowed during his campaign for the presidency in the May 2016 national and local elections that he will allow the late dictator’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, Metro Manila.
So, when the President from Mindanao won against former senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas, he fulfilled his campaign promise.
Hardly five months passed after Duterte assumed the presidency, he ordered Marcos, Sr.’s interment at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, amid vehement opposition from many Filipino individuals and groups, among them victims of the ousted president’s brutal martial law rule.
Duterte said he allowed the burial as he cited the late president’s being a former soldier for his decision, and a being an erstwhile president. And his decision was also given the go-signal by the Supreme Court, after it was postponed for two times in 2016: September 13 and October 18.
Finally, Marcos, Sr. was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on November 16 of the same year, breaking the hearts of many Filipinos and generating nationwide protests staged by groups, sectors, and personalities opposed to the burial.
At past 10 a.m. today, on a Friday, Vice President Inday Sarah Duterte engaged scores of journalists for a “sit-down” press conference at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) Central Office in Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila.
One of the questions asked by SDN — SciTech & Digital News regards the burial which was described by anti-Marcos critics as something that was done “like a thief in the night” because the Filipino people only knew it after the fact. Burial was surreptitiously made in the stillness of the night.
For context, it was the Vice President’s father who caused the burial, staking his presidency. Five Presidents before him — Corazon C. Aquino, Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and Benigno S. Aquino III did not allow it.
So, has the Marcos family forgotten the elder Duterte’s highly opposed decision, when those before him did not have the balls, the decisiveness, and the political will to swim against the tide?
Vice President Duterte has no sure answer.
New OVP tagline: “Drag me to hell”
“I don’t know. But one time, I told Senator Imee (Marcos), are you not going to stop? I’ll dig up your father and throw him into the West Philippine Sea'”, the Vice President recalls.
“I said that to Senator Imee.”
She emphasizes: “I’ll go there (Libingan ng mga Bayani). I’ll get the remains of your father. I’ll throw it into the West Philippine Sea.”
The Vice President she said relayed her sentiments to the re-electionist senator in a Group Chat, but did not reveal the date when she made them.
However, when the burial issue was brought up again by another reporter at the press conference, she did not mince words.
“I really told her, one of these days I’ll really dig up your father.”
She did not explained either what she was referring to when she told the senator from Ilocos Norte, “if you don’t stop”.
One can only surmised that Vice President Duterte was frustrated and nearing the boiling point as the allies in Congress of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. have been and continuing their investigations left and right on her past stint at the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Office of the Vice President.
Apparently, because of these, she said OVP has a new tagline: “Drag me to hell”.
“When they are sent to Hell, they’ll find out I am still the Vice President,” she says. (✓)