Martial law victims to ask High Court to stop Marcos' burial in heroes'cemetery

Filipinos who were tortured, jailed, raped, illegally arrested and whose relatives disappeared when Philippine former President Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law in 1972 intends to ask the Supreme Court to stop the government plan to bury Marcos in the heroes' cemetery, a spokesman for the group said Saturday.

Trinidad Herrera, of the Samahan ng Mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detention at Aresto or SELDA, said their group plans to file a petition with the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari next week.

"We want the Supreme Court to issue a temporary retraining order and/or writ of preliminary injunction to stop the Department of National Defense and the Armed Forces of the Philippines from conferring national honors to Marcos through the burial at the heroes' cemetery," Trinidad said.

" If such misdeed happens, it will be a grave injustice to the thousands of victims of extrajudicial killings, enforces disappearances, illegal arrests and detention, torture and harassment perpetrated by the Marcos fascist regime," he added.

Herrera is one of the 9,539 human rights victims who filed a class suit against Marcos in Hawaii. They won the case.

"Marcos is no hero. He was a murderer, torturer and a plunderer. To confer national honors to Marcos is a defilement of the people's historic struggle against the tyranny of martial law," Herrera said.

Herrera reiterated the victims' call to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to reconsider his decision "to give such honors to a dictator, and instead hasten the process of indemnification of the victims and relatives."

"Even in the sunset years of our lives, we will continue to fight for justice for all victims of martial law and state fascism," Herrera said.

The Marcos burial issue has again stirred heated debates on whether Marcos deserves a burial befitting a hero after Duterte said he would allow the dictator to be buried in the heroes' cemetery.

Duterte, a close friend of the Marcoses, believes that burying Marcos in the heroes' cemetery will "erase hatred" and heal the country.

Preparations are underway for the Marcos burial. A spokesman for Duterte told reporters that the exact for the burial has yet to be decided but Marcos's only son and namesake, former senator Ferdinand Marcos, announced that it would take place on Sept. 18.

Anti-Marcos groups are planning to mount a series of activities starting next week hoping that Duterte will change his mind.

Marcos, who ruled the country for two decades, died in exile Hawaii in 1989, three years after the Marcos family fled the Philippines following a popular uprising that ousted him when millions of Filipinos, backed by the military, took to the streets to protest Marcos abuses.

The Marcos family has long been dogged by accusations that the former president oversaw massive human rights abuses and plundered billions of dollars from the state.

His body, which was brought back to the Philippines in 1993, is now on display inside a glass box in an air-conditioned mausoleum beside the family's ancestral home in Batac, north of Manila.

The Marcos family, pleading for an "honorable burial", had lobbied the government for Marcos' remains to be interred at the heroes' cemetery in Manila. But the anti-Marcos and human rights groups have opposed the plan saying the disgraced leader does not deserve a military honor and a plot in the hallowed ground. Enditem