EDITORIAL | Make them regret itBy: InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
November 23, 2016
On the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, President Duterte is responsible and he will ultimately be proven wrong. But that is not to say that his allowing it was impeachable. It is not. It was political prerogative - a gamble, a gambit, maybe even a deal - exercised on legal footing.
The Supreme Court assures him so. The President had the right. Which is not to say that either of them was right. Indeed, worse than risking being wrong, nine justices voted to merely make the High Court irrelevant. Marcos is not only NOT a hero, in 1987 his despotism became the very basis for an entire new Constitution, a wholly rebooted republic reconsecrated not to national independence or republican trends, but to human rights, democracy, and good government. The arguably paranoid Constitution under which we now strive was hammered out not only with those ideals in mind, but with bloodied survivors doodling on the margins: #NeverAgain.
The Supreme Court says there is no law (and Duterte says there is no movie) that calls out Marcos as a criminal unworthy of anything. The government has written out checks to thousands in reparation for human rights victims, specifically human rights victims of the Marcos regime. Our Bill of Rights was reformulated and strengthened so that only courts can issue warrants. Just between and among us Filipinos, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is now nearly impossible to suspend, Duterte's blithe musings notwithstanding. And the PCGG was created specifically to recover billions of dollars in Marcos' ill-gotten wealth.
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