Bongbong 'deeply grateful' to Duterte for hero's burial for Marcos

 Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on Tuesday expressed his gratitude to incoming President Rodrigo Duterte for his willingness to grant the Marcos family's long-standing wish to have the late president Ferdinand Marcos buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. 

A "deeply grateful" Marcos described Duterte's gesture as "kind, rightful and healing" even as talks about granting the former leader a burial fit for a war hero have divided the nation for years. 

Speaking at a news conference on Monday night, Duterte said he would allow the burial since the elder Marcos was a former soldier, having joined the guerilla forces against the Japanese occupation in the 1940s. 

The senator agrees with Duterte's stance.  "It has always been our family's position that it is our father's right under the law to be buried there being a soldier and a former President of this country," Marcos said in a statement. 

"Our campaign has always been towards achieving unity to move the country forward. And it is this kind of pronouncement that we hope could end the decades of divisiveness that have been imposed upon us by our leaders," he added. 

A group opposing Marcos' vice presidential bid asked Duterte to reconsider, saying the late dictator does not deserve to get a hero's burial. 

"We ask President-elect Duterte to reconsider. FM (Ferdinand Marcos) cannot be considered a hero," said Campaign against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang (CARMMA) convenor Bonifacio Ilagan in a text message to GMA News Online. 

Burying him at the Libingan will also "whitewash all crimes he committed against the people and will send the wrong message to the world that in the Philippines, crime pays," Ilagan, a torture victim during Martial Law, said. 

He added that the former leader was a "phony wartime hero" as most of the 32 medals he accumulated during World War II were found to be fraudulent by the United States Army in early 1986.

"FM was a soldier who faked his medals and thus dishonored the honorable," Ilagan said. 

Former martial law activist and Rep. Etta Rosales said she cannot accept the burial of Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, Unang Balita reported on Wednesday.

Rosales added this is contrary to Duterte's campaign against corruption since Marcos' family allegedly stole billions of dollars.

The former president died while on exile in Hawaii in 1989, three years after he was ousted from Malacañang by a people power revolt. 

He was accused of committing massive human rights abuses and siphoning off some $10 billion from state coffers during two-decade rule from 1965 to 1986. — VVP/JST/KG, GMA News