‘Wall of shame’ names Marcos backers

Human rights activists today unveiled a “wall of shame” at the House of Representatives, criticizing those who proposed to give the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos a hero’s burial.

The activists, many of them victims of martial law in the 1970s and early 1980s, erected the “wall” at the gate of the legislative building in Quezon City.

The wall carries the photographs of legislators who sponsored House Resolution 1135, calling for the burial of Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes Cemetery).

Included in the wall are pictures of Representatives Imelda Marcos, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Mikey Arroyo, Salvador Escudero, who authored the resolution, and Rodolfo Albano.

“It makes a mockery of the horrors that the Filipino people endured during the martial law,” said Bonifacio Ilagan, head of an alliance of former political detainees.

Ilagan called on President Benigno Aquino III to make a categorical stand on the issue.

“Aquino should not pass the decision to Vice President Jejomar Binay who is currently doing a survey on this question, tearing the nation apart,” Ilagan said.

Church leaders have also been opposing the plan to bury Marcos at the cemetery.

Archbishop Anthonio Ledesma of Cagayan de Oro and a group of clergy in the central region of Visayas said Filipinos say they will not allow such a plan.

“I’m a Filipino citizen and I’m against it. We know how massive were the human rights abuses during the Marcos regime,” Archbishop Ledesma said.

The Visayas Clergy Discernment Group of Catholic bishops and clergy said a hero’s burial for the late dictator is totally out of the question given his “atrocious human rights records.”

Marcos’ body has been lying inside a refrigerated crypt in the family mausoleum in Ilocos Norte since 1993.