Former Commission on Human Rights chair Loretta “Etta” Rosales said the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos could not be buried at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani because he was not a hero.
Rosales’ reaction was in response to the remarks of President Rodrigo Duterte, who said he would allow a hero’s burial for Marcos to end decades of divisions that hounded the country. Rosales said human rights groups were poised to counter a future decision to bury Marcos at the heroes’ cemetery through a temporary restraining order. The twenty-year Marcos regime was marked by imprisonment, killings and disappearances of activists and human rights defenders. It was ended by a people power revolution in 1986, which sent the dictator’s family into exile in Hawaii where Marcos died.
