WE should join the mass actions to protest the Marcos burial — especially the ones called for Nov 25 and 30 — because the times call for it. Our dignity as free Filipinos has been challenged, our sense of heroism, of honour even, has been gravely insulted; the democratic project itself is under threat. Allowing the dictator’s remains to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, a national shrine, undermines the constitutional order.

We must show up in force in protest sites across the country.

We should protest the miscarriage of justice that is the supreme court decision in the Marcos burial cases. It is an abhorrent outcome not because it favours the Marcoses but because it is manifestly unjust; it disregards settled jurisprudence, minimises the import of history, bends over backwards to accommodate the incumbent president, and above all self-emasculates the judiciary, in order to favour the Marcoses. I have criticised the careless thinking and cowardly positions of associate justice Diosdado Peralta’s unfortunate majority opinion, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Associate Justice Benjamin Caguioa’s comprehensive rebuttal (every point of Peralta’s is dealt with, decisively) ends with the following deeply moving reflection:

“When all is said and done, when the cortege led by pallbearers has reached the plot in the LNMB dedicated to the newest ‘hero’ of the land and the coffin containing what is claimed to be the remains of former president Marcos has been finally buried in the ground or entombed above ground, this DISSENT, along with the dissents of the chief justice and Justices Carpio and Leonen, will be a fitting eulogy to the slaying of the might of judicial power envisioned in the 1987 Freedom Constitution by the unbridled exercise of presidential prerogative using vox populi as the convenient excuse.”

We should also protest President Duterte’s blithe attempt to revise history. At the Apec summit in Peru, where he spent millions of taxpayer pesos for the privilege of being absent from key events, he explained his support for the burial as merely legalistic — he had no choice, he said — but then also tried to wipe history’s slate clean. “Whether or not [Marcos] performed worse or better, there’s no study, no movie about it, just the challenges and allegations of the other side,” the first lawyer-president since Marcos himself said. This is patently untrue, not only because of the 20 or so supreme court decisions or the Republic Acts recognising Marcos’ perfidy, but also because in fact academic research and dozens of movies have shown or proven the Marcos regime as deeply anti-democratic.

We should protest the indecent haste, the characteristically Marcosian deception, with which the burial was conducted: in secrecy, using select units of the security services, before the court decision became final. Burial in the Libingan is a public honour, not a scam or a scheme.

Not least, we should protest the fact of the burial itself. How, one may ask, can an ex-soldier’s burial at a military cemetery be a threat to democracy? Peralta’s intellectually dishonest argument tries to depict Marcos as less than the corrupt dictator he was. “Marcos should be viewed and judged in his totality as a person. While he was not all good, he was not pure evil either. Certainly, just a human who erred like us.”

This is how abuses of power are normalised, by fudging them as “error”. Marcos’ errors include dozens of fabricated medals, over 3,000 people killed, tens of thousands tortured, over 100,000 casualties in the Moro war he started, $25 billion in crushing debt — and, oh, the death of democracy. No, he certainly wasn’t like us. Most Filipinos do not wield absolute power or become absolutely corrupt. Whether as “hero” or as ex-soldier, he does not deserve to be honoured.

So to the streets then, and yet again. Take all necessary precautions; learn to spot disinformation; do not treat the security services as monolithic (many good people who believe in democracy and are genuinely proud of our history continue to serve); encourage individual examples, but at the same time build communities of participation through institutions like schools, parishes and unions. The times call for it.

—Philippine Daily Inquirer

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2016