Bones of contention

Mea culpa.

Former Vice President Jejomar Binay called me up last Monday to correct a factual error in one item of my column that day. According to Binay, the late president Elpidio Quirino was not the “first” Philippine president to be laid to rest at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City. Quirino’s remains were, in fact, reinterred at the Libingan only recently this year. Binay said he should know it because he always jogs around the Manila South Cemetery in Makati City where Quirino was originally buried.

Binay, a former human rights lawyer, also strongly objects to the burial of the late president Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan. This situation would have been prevented, Binay said, had former president Benigno Aquino III approved his recommendation to agree to the burial at Ilocos Norte but with full military honors for the late president that the Marcos family agreed with him as then vice president.

Quirino’s remains were transferred to Libingan last Feb. 29 this year which also marked the 60th death anniversary of Quirino, the sixth president of the Republic. He was the third president, next to Carlos Garcia and Diosdado Macapagal, now buried at Libingan.

My deepest apology to the Quirino family for the unintended slip.

At high noon of that day, the bones and ashes of Quirino, contained in a marble urn, were laid to rest at the presidents’ section of the Libingan, highlighted with a 21-gun salute and full military honors. The solemn ceremonies were led by P-Noy and former president Fidel Ramos, immediate Quirino family members, and relatives led by the former president’s granddaughter and Miss World Philippine franchise head Cory Quirino, Filipino war veterans, and members of the diplomatic corps. A petal drop from a military helicopter capped the event.

Except the petal drop, these were the same honors given last Friday to Marcos, whose bones were also transferred to Libingan 27 years after his death.

Quirino was elected to the Philippine Congress in 1919. He served as the vice president of Manuel Roxas and took over as president upon the latter’s death in 1948 and served the remaining term in office. Quirino served second term at Malacañang during which he got into the controversy over his alleged “golden” orinola (chamber pot) that his political foes claimed he kept at his Palace bedroom.

When he died of cardiac arrest at age 65, Quirino was buried at the Manila South Cemetery.

His family-run President Elpidio Quirino Foundation (PEQF) claimed he was buried in simple ceremonies and was not given the funeral rites and honors he deserved after serving the country from 1948 to 1953.

Quirino’s grandson Poncy was quoted saying the reinterment was granted with the help of the NHCP and the Office of the President during the Aquino administration. “It was a process but we were happy being taken care of by Manila,” the younger Quirino told a television interview.

He referred to former president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada who led the ceremonies to remove Quirino’s remains from its crypt at the South Cemetery. During his speech at the reinterment rites, Estrada recalled he was only 12 years old when Quirino led the country forward from the devastation of the World War II. Estrada stressed the transfer of Quirino remains at Libingan though late in coming was really deserved.

Unlike Ramos, Estrada agrees and supports the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to end the Marcos burial issue. The 79-year-old Estrada, who served as the 13th president of the Republic, says he has already put up his own mausoleum on top of the Rizal hills at his Tanay rest house.

Several months after the reinterment of Quirino, Mayor Estrada commemorated the memories of Quirino in his 125th birth anniversary last Wednesday. He was born on Nov. 16, 1890, in Vigan, Ilocos Sur. Through the initiatives of Mayor Estrada, Quirino’s monument was transferred and installed at its new site at the corner of the busy intersection in Manila between Roxas Boulevard and Quirino Avenue, the road named after the late president.

In special rites held last Wednesday, Quirino’s life-size  monument – which previously stood inside the grounds of the Ospital ng Maynila – was installed to its new site facing Roxas Boulevard where monuments of several other former presidents and historic personalities also dotted along its stretch.

If there was an interesting thing that happened at the reinterment of Quirino, it was the anecdote shared by Cory Quirino with reporters at the cemetery. She narrated her conversations with Ramos who reportedly told her he wanted to be buried beside her grandfather at Libingan.

“He (Ramos) told me he had already chosen his gravesite here and he said he wanted to be buried beside President Quirino,” Cory Quirino was quoted telling reporters. She credited Ramos’ declaration started the process of having the late President’s ashes transferred to the Libingan.

After a year of planning, the transfer of Quirino’s remains finally happened through the efforts of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) and the PEQF. The transfer was a testament to Quirino’s efforts in paving the way for the country’s independence, according to the NHCP.

Perhaps, among other reasons, this is why the 88-year-old Ramos remains aghast that the remains of the late dictator – whose ouster from power he helped succeed during the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution – were now buried at the Libingan. Echoing sentiments of anti-Marcos groups, Ramos bristled after the Marcoses went ahead with the reinterment without waiting for the Supreme Court to resolve petitions asking for the reversal of the 9-5 ruling that paved the way for the burial of Marcos at the Libingan.

In particular, Ramos sternly reminded the Marcoses about the signed document by the Marcoses, stating among other things, to bury the strongman at his hometown in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

However, Ramos clarified his differences of opinion with Duterte over the Marcos burial at the Libingan does not diminish his support to the incumbent administration. After all, it was Ramos who convinced the former Davao City mayor to run for the presidency.

Sadly though, the bones of contention over the Marcos burial at the Libingan will continue to divide the country.