Leopaul's Heaven and Hell: How the Marcos burial grind my gears...

Ferdinand E. Marcos

As this segment is all about me doing the op-ed about every little thing that bothers me the most, and since there's a big protest going around the Metro, I think it would be the ideal time about how the "sudden" burial of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos became a bothersome hot issue not just to me but for the rest of Filipinos elsewhere.

So, how did this burial come to this? Yes, we read some issues about how it happened and how Filipinos, even those affected from the infamous Martial Law era that Marcos implemented since 1972, became enraged on those who committed such a sneaky maneuver, but all I want is the real answer to the question on how did they bury the late strongman to the Libingan ng mga Bayani without warning, unless someone who has a field for espionage knows the answer.

One plausible theory suggests that burying Marcos was an act of revenge plotted by his son, the former senator Bongbong Marcos, who lost the bid to vice-presidency to Leni Robredo. When the May 2016 elections favored the former Davao City mayor, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, known as the Philippine equivalent of Donald Trump due to his tortured metaphors that propelled his way to win the elections, which is the same thing goes to Duterte himself, the race to vice-presidency became too close to call for Bongbong Marcos, a running mate for the late Miriam Defensor-Santiago, and Leni Robredo, the widow of the late DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo. When the race to the vice-presidency slightly favored Leni Robredo, Marcos became enraged to the results, thinking that then-President Benigno Aquino III's administration rigged the elections and the bad case of voter fraud that prompted him to file a petition to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

For a poppycock like Bongbong Marcos, despite losing his vice-presidential bid to Leni Robredo, he still has the guts to think that he deserved that post and then, following the separate inauguration of Duterte as president and Robredo as vice president, Marcos has flipped his trump card (pun intended) from his sleeves; by announcing the burial of his father to the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani. This is like every scene in a movie where the bad guy, in his dying state, pulled the switch to execute his evil plot as his last resort. Of course, such smart move had some major hindrances because originally, the Marcos burial was meant to be buried by September but a Temporary Restraining Order, following series of petitions filed against this, prevented it to do so. Following the end of the Temporary Restraining Order, the Supreme Court officially declared a 9-5 vote, in favor of the Marcos burial at the LNMB.

Burying a dictator maybe a first to do so in the Philippines but Marcos isn't the only one of the dictators who got themselves buried. Of course, there are some dictators in world history got themselves buried. One of the most infamous example is the Spanish dictator who ruled his country for almost four decades; Francisco Franco. When Franco died in the 20th of November, 1975, his remains was buried at the Valle de los Caidos, which is more of a heroes' cemetery dedicated to soldiers from both sides who fought during the Spanish Civil War, which made him rose to power. The dirty fact about this heroes' cemetery in Spain is that it was built by political prisoners and following Franco's final resting place, some angered Spanish people demanded to exhume his grave and repurpose the memorial into a historical center because it ruins the memory of those who died during the civil war.

If Ferdinand E. Marcos ruined the Philippines with his two-decade leadership, he should be worried because in Indonesia, there is one known to be one of the most infamous dictators in world history, none other than Suharto. During his three-decade rule, he killed millions of people under his rule, including 500,000 Indonesians labeled as communists. Also, Suharto was known to be the most corrupt leaders in history, leaving Marcos 2nd place and Joseph Estrada 10th, for allegedly amassing 15 to 35 billion dollars from his cronies.

Imagine, in the purgatory for dictators, Ferdinand E. Marcos meets up with the other dictators and when he tell them he was buried at a heroes' cemetery, they all think it was a joke and Suharto would probably punch Marcos in the face because he's nothing more than a second-rate, just to steal Suharto's crown as the most infamous dictator in history. Up until now, the Indonesian government are on the hot debate about considering Suharto as a "national hero" and if Suharto gets that title that every Indonesian opposed to it, he will put Ferdinand E. Marcos to shame and he'll become the laughing stock in the purgatory for dictators.

Burying a dictator on a heroes' cemetery maybe the least of our problems but naming a dictator as a "national hero" is the worst.  Naming him a hero after committing series of human rights abuses and corruption not only hurts the nation, it also hurts the very foundation of history that is worth passing on to the next generation and upon learning from the "sudden" burial of Ferdinand E. Marcos, it's a definitive perception why the world affairs is getting louder all of a sudden. 

As history becoming more of a fickle mistress, twists and turns are becoming the new normal and it's becoming a fixed point in time so no time travellers can mess it with disastrous results. What we're facing right now is how the times fiddle us with its twists and turns no one saw it coming, and how we live up to our own ways to keep moving forward until we are past our prime is up to us because no matter how good or bad the times are, entrusting to oneself's future is the way to change the world, the way to change the future.

Anyway, that's everything I said and that's the end of it. If you don't mind, I have some moping up to do with world affairs in my back.