The SC decision for a Marcos burial at LNMB presents another problem—belittling a people’s initiative to oust a dictator.
“What is so abhorring in the decision was for it to declare that the ouster of the dictator Marcos by the ‘so-called EDSA Revolution’ was a political act that ‘should not be automatically given a particular legal meaning other than its obvious consequence – that of ousting him as president.”
Why was this SC statement offensive? Sta. Maria said it “seriously condescends (or belittles) one of the nation’s greatest achievements – the unceremonial ouster of a dictator – which was hailed around the world.”
He continued: “The statement is offensive to the sensibilities of all those who sacrificed so much resisting the Marcos autocratic regime.”
He added that the “forced ouster” of a president “is by itself an occurrence loaded with legal meaning and consequences. The issues of succession, legitimacy or illegitimacy of an administration, form of government, and liabilities come into play. Such cessation necessarily involves legalities or issues thereof of enormous national importance. That is not hard to see.”
Sta. Maria then quoted Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in his masterpiece article titled Path of the Law: “The rational study of law is still to a large extent the study of history. History must be a part of the study, because without it we cannot know the precise scope of rules which it is our business to know.”
Thus, Sta. Maria said, “historical facts precede and are embedded in the law. National developments, especially highly significant ones, such as a President’s ouster, will always have significant legal impact – affecting, as they do, the direction of the nation and its government.”
Sta. Maria, therefore, quoted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno in this regard:
“For the Court to pretend that the present dispute is a simple question of the entitlement of a soldier to a military burial is to take a regrettably myopic view of the controversy. It would be to disregard historical truths and legal principles that persist after death.”
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Furthermore, Sta. Maria pointed to other circumstances that the SC should have carefully weighed. He enumerated some:
“His regime looted our national treasury. The PCGG already recovered billions of dollars of ill-gotten wealth and, as many said, they are only the tip of the iceberg.”
“Summary executions, tortures, enforced or involuntary disappearances and other gross violations of human rights victimized so many as determined and recognized by a declared public policy statement enshrined in a law, Republic Act No. 10368 or the Reparation of Human Rights Victims Law. The massive acts of fraud during the 1986 snap election and all elections during that era were unprecedented.”
Sta. Maria concluded: “The evidences are just compelling.”
Sta. Maria felt that the SC shouldn’t have treated the unseating of Marcos from power lightly. “The ouster of Marcos, therefore, as President was not precipitated by some form of national and political whim. It was the legal result of Marcos’ own illegal and criminal acts,” he said.
All the people’s initiative and efforts to depose what they deemed an abusive president would be “desecrated” if Marcos is given a place in the sanctuary of great heroes, Sta. Maria said.
“To bury him in a public and sacred place desecrates the people’s collective decision rejecting Marcos’ gross misdeeds that inflicted so much damage to the nation,” he said. Not only so, but it’s also a “reinstatement of impunity – a dreadful notion full of legal significance,” he added.
He also quoted Justice Leonen: “The burial of Ferdinand E. Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is not an act of national healing. It is an effort to forget our collective shame, to bury our inaction for many years. It is to contribute to the impunity against human rights abuses and the plunder of our public trust.”
What does Sta. Maria counsel the aggrieved and those who refuse to grant Marcos the honor of being buried at the LNMB?
According to him, they must “continue to make known their animadversions (criticism). There is nothing wrong about that.”
Criticizing the SC is not disparaging it, Sta. Maria said. “Expressing antagonistic views, no matter how robustly loud, is not a condemnation of the Supreme Court but, a form of legitimate petition for the redress of grievance pursuant to the Constitution,” he said.
In fact, criticism of SC decisions is part of a healthy democracy. Sta. Maria said, “Democracy involves varying degrees of legitimate and intelligent advocacies even if they appear to be hopeless against the powers of great institutions, such as the Supreme Court and the Office of the President.”
It is also the mark of freedom. Sta. Maria quoted Baron de Monstesquieu: “If in the interior of a state you do not hear the noise of any conflict, you can be sure that freedom is not there.”
“Indeed, when the time comes that, in a state, there is no more opposition providing clashing observations and vocal criticisms,” Sta. Maria warned, “then democracy is diminished. Government cannot make the citizens accountable for believing and voicing-out that its policies, promulgations and determinations are trash.”
Here was Sta. Maria’s verdict about how the SC handled the Marcos burial issue:
“In this Marcos-LNMB-burial case, I believe the Supreme Court, or nine (9) of its members constituting the majority – Justices Peralta, Bersamin, Velasco, Brion, De Castro, Bernabe, Del Castillo, Mendoza and Perez – got it wrong.
“On the other hand, the five (5) dissenters and their minority opinions – those who opposed the burial – Chief Justices Lourdes Sereno and Justices Antonio Carpio, Marvic Leonen, Alfredo Caguioa, and Francis Jardeleza – make many of us proud as Filipinos.”
Source: (interaksyon.com)
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