“Ayaw sa libingan, adto sa inayawan”: Landfill ‘burial’ for Marcos

CEBU, Philippines - Former president will be buried today at the Inayawan landfill. Or at least his effigy. 

And no less than Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña will attend the ceremonial burial, which is a form of protest on the recent Supreme Court decision allowing Marcos to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

"Nindot gyud na. I think that's more deserving. I'll be there. I'm not going to play the lead but I will be there," Osmeña said.

He has been vocal on his disagreement on the burial of Marcos at the Libingan, saying Marcos was not a hero.

While he said he is not a lawyer and therefore is not in a position to say that the SC was at fault on its decision allowing the burial.

"I cannot say sayop gyud sila. But to me, it hurts. And something is wrong. I look at it from the standpoint where we're celebrating a dictatorship. Di ko modawat niana. They might explain that technically he's a soldier so he deserves to be buried there. But I think the law is designed to serve men. Not the other way around," Osmeña said.

"Sometimes, man should serve the law? I don't think so. The law is there so that men can aspire and move ahead. And this is not serving its purpose by using the law to justify and glorify a dictator," he added.

The Cebu Citizens Assembly is the one taking the lead in the ceremonial burial at the landfill.

    "We denounce with one big reverberating voice our opposition to the Supreme Court's decision to allow the wax cadaver of the dictator Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani," said the group, in a statement.

"That dumpsite, the biggest perhaps in Cebu and comparable to Manila's smoky mountain, is the most fitting place for the biggest filth in the Philippines-the dictator Ferdinand Marcos," the group added.

Alvin Dizon, former Cebu City councilor and a student activist, said that around 500 anti-Marcos citizens will assemble under the Mambaling flyover before proceeding to the dumpsite.

He said that there will be a mock funeral march and burial of the Marcos coffin at the dumpsite as a form of a protest action dubbed "Ayaw sa Libingan, adto sa Inayawan."

"Filthy is how we describe the decision of the Supreme Court that allows the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani," the Cebu Citizens Assembly said.

 It said that the SC decision is dirty because it smacks of subservience to the whims of the President Rodrigo Duterte, who publicly acknowledged the monetary contributions of the Marcoses to his presidential campaign.

The group said that Amnesty International said Marcos' atrocities include the murder of 3,240 Filipinos, the torture of 34,000 men, women, and children, and the incarceration of 70,000 people.

"How could the collective pain of the Filipino nation butchered by the dictator Marcos be covered up a by a mere payment of a political debt? For how could a dictator's symbolic wax body be buried in what is publicly perceived to be reserved for heroes?" the group said. —  Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon, Jean Marvette A. Demecillo (FREEMAN)