Marcos burial issue must be laid to rest

LAS VEGAS — Scanning through Philstar.com for news back home while here on the last leg of this trip, I read a report that Vice President Jejomar Binay left Manila last Friday for an official visit here in the United States. The Office of the Vice President (OVP) announced that his latest trip to the US was related to his role as chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC). He is supposedly attending a 10-day conference on housing finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

The OVP disclosed that Binay, along with top officials of key shelter agencies under the umbrella of the HUDCC, would undergo the International Housing Finance Program (IHFP) on “Housing Finance in a Changing Global Environment” from June 6 to 16.

“I believe this is a good opportunity for us, as housing officials, to learn more about how we could improve our housing system,” Binay was quoted as saying. “I am confident this would give us fresh insights on how to address our 3.6 million housing gap, and provide quality and affordable homes to our people,” he added.

Giving the public the details of this trip, the OVP explained that Binay and his official delegation would take up eight IHFP modules ranging from housing policies to micro financing for housing. The OVP press statement cited this program at the Wharton School as providing an “intensive period of education in policy innovations, and institutional, financial and managerial aspects of housing finance.”

According to the OVP, Binay’s schedule in the US would also include dialogues and meetings with Filipino communities in Rockland County in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, and Monterey in California. In his capacity as concurrent Presidential Adviser on Overseas Migrant Filipinos, Binay was also set to attend the flag raising and Philippine Independence Day parade on June 5 in New York City, the flag raising on June 12 in Washington, and the Rizal Day celebration on June 17 in Monterey.

Based on that full schedule of Binay while in the US, anyone can intelligently conclude the Vice President is not at all attending the entire 10-day housing conference in Wharton, and is, in fact, on a swing around the US for ceremonial activities.

Wasn’t he who said that he was attending this program at Wharton in order to learn more about the latest developments in housing finance? Incidentally, Wharton is the alma mater of former Senator Mar Roxas II who ran but lost to Binay in the May 10 vice presidential elections.

By the way, Roxas has accepted P-Noy’s offer for him to head the Department of Transportation and Communications, replacing Ping de Jesus who recently tendered his resignation. Prior to his upcoming Cabinet post, Roxas has been acting as presidential “troubleshooter” of P-Noy though on an informal basis. Once appointed to P-Noy’s Cabinet, the Palace earlier clarified that Roxas does not need to drop his election protest against Binay that is still pending before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

In the meantime, it was certainly laudable on the part of the Vice President to attend the special program at Wharton on housing finance. As the HUDCC chief, Binay could, of course, learn a lot to come up with new schemes to make housing affordable to Filipinos in the lower-income bracket and thus lessen the government subsidy for socialized shelter projects.

But smart alecks could argue, and rightly so, that the government need not spend public funds just to educate Binay and other top executives of state housing agencies for this purpose at Wharton. Hopefully, the rest of Binay’s official delegation from state housing agencies would attend the entire 10-day program and would not be here in the US to waste Filipino taxpayers’ money on a junket.

Before he left Manila, Binay reportedly submitted to the Palace the OVP’s study and recommendations on the proposed burial of the late President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City. This was in compliance with the special assignment given to him by President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III on this long pestering national issue on whether or not to allow a hero’s burial for the late dictator.

If we are to believe reports from Manila, Binay allegedly recommended to P-Noy that Marcos’ remains be interred in his hometown in Batac, Ilocos Norte. There, Marcos will be given instead full military honors for his service as a soldier during World War II despite questions on the medals awarded to him for bravery and heroism. Purportedly, the Binay report did not recommend a Libingan burial for Marcos despite his being a former President of the country for nearly two decades.

Since the Marcoses were allowed to return to the Philippines several years after the February 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, the waxed remains of the late President have laid in state in a refrigerated crypt in the family mausoleum in Batac.

Binay’s spokesman Joey Salgado immediately issued an official disclaimer on the contents of the OVP report. Salgado noted that talks on a possible military burial for Marcos originated from the Palace and not from Binay, and neither from any OVP officials involved in the study.

Since he left Manila after submitting his report on this national issue to the Palace, Binay practically tossed back to P-Noy the problem that the latter has precisely been avoiding to deal with personally and on official basis.

At the outset, P-Noy has already made it clear that he would like to totally inhibit himself from this issue, being the son of the late strongman’s political foes, his late mother, ex-President Corazon Aquino, and assassinated former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.

Just what is the endgame of P-Noy’s gambit on the Marcos burial issue is a no-win for him. The Filipino nation obviously remains divided on this moral, or rather mortal question that this controversial Binay report sought to settle with finality.

Binay is still here in the US and far away from the burning issue that he ignited anew. The Palace is buying time to douse the ensuing raging debate and is waiting for Binay’s return from his ceremonial activities abroad. Until P-Noy makes up his mind on this Marcos burial issue, this problem will not simply go away. He must decide once and for all in order to lay this matter to rest, so to speak.