"To ‘move on’ without justice is simply not possible for the thousands, even millions, of victims of the Marcos dictatorship. Instead, it is the Marcoses who should move on,” said Danilo Dela Fuente, spokesperson of SELDA, today during the Supreme Court oral arguments on the petitions against late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Former political prisoners and torture survivors during martial law, including dela Fuente and other personalities, were the first batch of those who filed the petition.
"To ‘move on’ without justice is simply not possible for the thousands, even millions, of victims of the Marcos dictatorship. Instead, it is the Marcoses who should move on,” said Danilo Dela Fuente, spokesperson of SELDA, today during the Supreme Court oral arguments on the petitions against late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Former political prisoners and torture survivors during martial law, including dela Fuente and other personalities, were the first batch of those who filed the petition.
“The Marcos family and their cronies could not move on from the fact that the Filipino people toppled the Marcos dictatorship due to its puppetry to the US, massive plunder of public funds, oppression of already impoverished Filipinos, and human rights abuses. The Marcos family could not move on from the fact that even the US Hawaii court found Marcos guilty of human rights abuses on 9,539 counts,” Dela Fuente said.
SELDA said, "It must be recalled that it was more than forty years after the declaration of martial law when the Philippine government recognized the plight of the victims of human rights violations during the Marcos dictatorship by enacting Republic Act 10368 or the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013. The Marcoses could not accept the fact that the Philippine government has been prodded by the relentless struggle for justice of the victims and the Filipino people to recognize the abuses and mistakes of Ferdinand Marcos,” Dela Fuente added.
“The Marcoses refuse to move on from these facts because they long to be back in power," Dela Fuente further said. Ferdinand Marcos and his family, during his term, acquired billions worth of ill-gotten wealth, some of which are still subjects of pending litigations while much remain hidden. "Moreover, the foreign debt his administration incurred ballooned and actually rendered future generations of Filipinos, even those still unborn, heavily indebted by the millions,” he added.
“To bury Marcos with national honors is to bury the memories and legacy of those who struggled for freedom and democracy," Dela Fuente concluded.