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Marcoses broke promise to bury FM’s body at once in Ilocos – Fidel Ramos

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Marcos body was accorded military honors in 1993

My exclusive

By Raïssa Robles

 

Should we be surprised?

In his very last news conference as outgoing President, Fidel Ramos told reporters that the Marcos family broke one of the three preconditions they had agreed to in exchange for bringing Ferdinand Marcos’ remains to the Philippines.

“I authorized the return of the remains of the late president under certain conditions,” Ramos said on June 24, 1998 on the eve of his transfer of presidential power to President-elect Joseph Estrada. [I’m sure media outlets can dig up the sound bites on this.]

Ramos, a cousin of Ferdinand Marcos, said his first condition was that the body not stop over in Manila but be flown directly to Ilocos. That was fulfilled. And it is for this reason that no public wake was held for Marcos’ body in Manila.

The second precondition was that during Marcos’ burial in Ilocos, “he (would) be given the honors befitting a major of the armed forces,”  Ramos said. The Marcoses in effect agreed that their father would be denied state honors.

That, too, was fulfilled, Ramos said. Which was why Marcos’ remains were not given a 21-gun salute but those of a middle-level military officer. The rank of major was the highest rank Marcos claimed being promoted to during the Second World War.

But the last precondition – a quick burial – was never fulfilled, Ramos disclosed five years after the Marcoses broke their promise on this issue.

Ramos told  reporters:

My third condition was that he be buried in the meantime in Ilocos Norte, (pending) on the decision of the family as to the place. But that was not fulfilled because he was not buried.

Wait a minute.

Did Ramos say Marcos was given burial military honors befitting an army major?

Then why are the Marcoses still demanding full military honors when that was clearly not part of the deal they agreed to in order to transport his body to the country?

Seeing that the Marcoses gave their promise to a President of the Republic of the Philippines. And that promise remains unfulfilled. Can’t the incumbent Philippine President just collect on that burial promise?

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UPDATED INSERT –

Reporting on the same news conference,  the Philippine Daily Inquirer  published on June 25, 1998  that two of the three preconditions were fulfilled – the direct trip to Batac and military honors befitting an army major:

“These  two conditions were eventually fulfilled when Marcos was brought to Batac through the Laoag International Airport. He was later given military honors before being placed in an air-conditioned mausoleum in the Marcos ancestral home in Batac.”

_____________________________________________

Below is the New York Times article on the return of Marcos’ body which the Marcoses then said would be buried in a “black marble mausoleum.”

imelda marcos with dead body“Fooled ya,” Imelda Marcos must have muttered afterward as she displayed his corpse like a grotesque version of Sleeping Beauty” inside a glass coffin.

If you notice, according to the NYT report, the body of Marcos’ mother Josefa had been kept in a refrigerated crypt for 10 years since her death in 1988.

Hmmm. Imelda Marcos buried her mother’-in-law’s body and instead kept Ferdie in a refrigerated crypt. Why didn’t she just lay both bodies side by side? It would have been a first – a mom-and-son death show.  Did that gesture say something about Imelda Marcos’ relations with her mother-in-law?

Body of Marcos Is Flown Home to the Philippines

Published: September 07, 1993 (New York Times)

Four years after he died in exile in Hawaii, the body of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos arrived here this morning on board a chartered plane from Guam.

A mournful Imelda Marcos held back tears as a woman plaintively sang a traditional mourning song, “Our Signs and Cries are Endless.” Several thousand of Mr. Marcos’s loyal friends and supporters cheered and sang “I Am a Filipino” as the plane landed.

Seven and a half years after he was forced to flee the Philippines after a popular uprising, his body was returned to the country he ruled with an iron hand for nearly 20 years.

Mr. Marcos died in exile in Hawaii in September 1989, but his successor, Corazon C. Aquino, rejected pleas by his widow, Imelda, to allow burial in his native soil.

Mrs. Aquino cited reasons of national security. Although the return of Mr. Marcos’s body is being ignored in much of the country, here in his home province of Ilocos Norte the Marcos name is still celebrated and the deposed President is considered a hero.

Thousands turned up at Laoag International Airport, 320 miles north of Manila, to take part in welcome ceremonies arranged by Mrs. Marcos, who mounted a macabre and festive spectacle. Schoolchildren performed folk dances, priestesses performed rites of communing with the dead and chickens were slaughtered to drive away evil spirits. Vendors made brisk business by selling pins, fans and T-shirts.

Mr. Marcos’s body will lie in state for four days before it is publicly displayed in a black marble mausoleum built by his wife on the grounds of the old Marcos family home in the town of Batac.

Mr. Marcos’s mother, Josefa, who died in 1988, will also be buried this week. Her body has been kept in a refrigerated coffin, as her family refused to bury her until her son’s remains were brought home.

President Fidel V. Ramos has refused to give full state honors to Mr. Marcos, who during his time in power imposed martial law, arrested and tortured thousands of opponents and ransacked the national treasury. But by allowing Mr. Marcos’s burial here, Mr. Ramos is also trying to woo the support of the still-substantial Marcos constituency and douse the passion of intensely loyal supporters.

Members of the old Marcos retinue have been in full attendance: former generals and Cabinet ministers and the society matrons who once graced the balls at the presidential palace arrived in their limousines on Sunday to call on Mrs. Marcos, who held court in the cold and cavernous family mansion.

Comments

  1. hello raissa. i was told you called my office earlier. i can confirm what FVR said because he tasked me to talk to Mrs Marcos regarding those three points: fly the remains of the late-President directly to Ilocos Norte because we didn’t want a political spectacle in Metro Manila had he been flown here for obvious peace and order reasons; military honors befitting the rank of major which he held in the USAFFE (full military honors was out of the question given the harsh judgement of history on him here and abroad); and a quick burial there instead of at the Libingan ng mga Bayani which Mrs Marcos wanted or failing that, somewhere in Antipolo where a memorial would be built in his honor. It was a difficult moment for the administration. which was pushing its peace and development agenda, that needed all hands on deck working together towards that goal, after reeling from the disastrous effects of martial rule, the coup attempts during Cory’s incumbency and the brownout years that, combined, set back the country’s socioeconomic development. I need not belabor the point why the Marcos agenda was unacceptable.

    • Sir, why don’t you tell Digong about these conditions? Maybe he will listen to you. He is wrong about uniting the country if Mr. Marcos gets buried at the lnmb. The country will remain divided. After his term, maybe Mr. Marcos will have the same fate as Franco.

      • burying macoy to lnmb will set a precedent.
        imo, a bad precedent.
        his will be laid along those heroes that dedicated their blood to our nation’s glory.
        the dictator did the opposite. blood of the oppresed were spilled for his hold to power and his honor.
        it will be really sad if that happens.
        he will be remembered by our youth a hero not a dictator, not a plunderer.
        as if we pinoys did not learn anything from that oppressive dictatorship marcos wielded.
        so sad it will be.

  2. Ms.Raissa, I’ve forwarded this to everybody I know! Can someone do something to make it

    more public?Maybe have it on the news for example- or better still, ask former Pres.Ramos

    to go on tv before it is too late.I don’t believe VP Binay did not know anything about the

    preconditions given by Fidel Ramos. Yet he went ahead with the the offer of “full military

    honors” for the Batac burial, all for the sake of his personal agenda.What a shame!

  3. Yes, it seems VP Binay didn’t do his research – or chose to ignore this important information.
    I wonder if the preconditions were formally agreed to by the family. But then if they deny that Ramos set those preconditions, it will be a case of he-said-she-said – and I expect Ramos has a higher credibility than the Marcoses. If Ramos will NOW stand by what he said in 1998, then the present administration has the OBLIGATION to ensure that the family abides by the conditions set by the government.
    And, just nitpicking – it seems to me that the second condition was not fulfilled. Marcos was supposed to be given military honors (rank of major) DURING his burial in Ilocos. Since he was never buried, there was no burial. So when were the military honors given? It would seem that only one of Ramos’ conditions was met.

    • Binay on the other hand, fell for the bribe of the the marcoses and exposed himself in shame as a dirty politician with his own agenda! This gesture of trying to please the marcoses is an act of treason to the country and ingratitude to the widow of the murdered Sen. Aquino who appointed him in a position that initiated and eventually catapulted him to his position now. And to those 200 and some reps., shame on you too, because you failed to represent your constituents concerns and indignities the misrule of the despot has affected them!!

  4. Truly, now that his dirt-physical-body can just be pulverized and placed in an ordinary cheap box, then placed in Imeldas massive bed- room for display; the burning spirit possibly hollering, ” DO IT! DO IT! JUST PUT MY SOUL IN PEACE TO REDUCE THE VERY HOT TORTURING PAIN I NOW FEELS.” And truly too, his soul possibly yells also for his box of dirt physical body, not to be given any kind of honors, since the truth just aggrevates his spirit’s present condition. Simply, Imelda et al don’t undersatand the spiritual meaning of any of their involvements—- they are very naive, too much blind- pride rules their sinning spirits.

    • Victor, useless pleadings as imelda knows there is immunity in hell torures for demons like the marcoses!

  5. To hell with the jellyfish lidders of Pinas.
    What is Ramos doing after his cousin broke his promise? Silent night is holy night?
    Marcos the villain was already given an undeserved military honors,
    why is his family and cronies still asking for more military honors?
    The plundering hero of the worst kind was supposed to have been buried a long time ago,
    why is he still around continuing his dictatorship and abusing Pinas?

    The evil Yorkan King Marcos of the Philippines, has broken the Circle of Decency and Justice in that Dreamland. He was an evil dictator while alive. Now, even in death, he continues to be an evil dictator with a frozen body telling his family and his cronies the “divine plan” to go on and multiply his evil deeds.

    It does not look like the poor Pinas can have “The Circle As Before” in their life time. So, what is Pinas waiting for? Go ahead, just let Beijing drop a couple of their A-Bombs in the Ilocos Nation and get it over with. Pinas can then have “The Circle As Before” with Ergon, the Protector of the Right.

    ” ‘Tis the land of dreams
    Created by Light
    Circle ‘round it beams
    Protector of the right
    Circle was broken
    Creatures would implore
    To see the oaken
    Circle as before”

    That is a portion of the preface in the pocketbook “The Circle As Before” written by a twelve-year (12) old girl when she was still ten (10) years old.
    You bet, I could not believe it myself. But you can read some portions/reviews of it at Amazon.com, a marketer, or Lulu.com the publisher in their respective sites:
    http://www.amazon.com/Circle-As-Before-isbn/product-reviews/1458334287/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_helpful?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0
    http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-circle-as-before/14460102

  6. Thanks for unearthing these facts. More so, this shows VP Binay failed to research and gather recent facts that Marcos was already accorded military honors in 1993. As for the Marcoses, what do we say about thieves and liars? Kapatid ng magnanakaw ang sinungaling! What better example of this wisdom.

  7. can you just bury him..kanya minamalas ang pilipinas eh…look at us still behind in so many things..bakit ang magagaling bang mga official is better than marcos. I am not for marcos or anybody but look at ua..look at Angie Reyes,,talk about magnanakaw..he was worst than marcos..parepareho lang mga iyan..bakit ba nag suicide si angie reyes aber..imagine giving him a full military honor..bullshit iyan..

      • Tama si Raissa! Angie Reyes wasn;t worse than Marcos. Baka in the making pa nga lang ang ipinanganak na worse than Marcos!?

    • If you Really and Sincerely want to know the truth (hindi lang kunwarian)Check how much Marcos stole. From genuine international resources, not the fb propaganda. Then you will see Marcos was a champion in everything, including thievery. Guiness book of records as biggest political thief. Who is agnes …what? Sisiw ang lahat next to him. Even Binay is a small time thief next to him.

  8. Thanks for bringing this up and enlightening us Filipinos – it completely dispels the impression that injustice was committed against Marcos and his family for not allowing his burial in an appropriate manner. Turns out it’s his widows fault, who insist on keeping him above-ground as a leverage to be used every now and then for political advantage. So I agree, the government must now insist that they comply with the terms of the agreement for his return. Bury him in Batac and allow the nation to move on.

  9. “Seeing that the Marcoses gave their promise to a President of the Republic of the Philippines. And that promise remains unfulfilled. Can’t the incumbent Philippine President just collect on that burial promise?”

    You were going for sarcasm here, right?

    • I’m serious. President Aquino can just say he was already given military honors in 1993. And they have to fulfill their part of the bargain with the Philippine government – to bury him once and for all in Batac.

  10. yeah, a 21 105mm cannon salute directed at the glass coffin sounds well-deserved…

  11. Thank you. Salute me maybe with a 21-cannon salute directed at you know what?

  12. You are a fantastic reposter Raissa. Bravo!!! You always come up with the timely, aprropriate subject matter to educate the forgetful Filipino People. I must Salute You.

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