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193 lawmakers urge PNoy to allow Marcos a hero's burial


(Updated 8:14 p.m.) A total of 193 lawmakers have signed a proposed resolution at the House of Representatives urging President Benigno Aquino III to allow the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The resolution was authored by Sorsogon Rep. Salvador Escudero III and has yet to be filed after making rounds at the House floor in the past weeks. “Allowing the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani will not only be an acknowledgment of the way he led a life as a Filipino patriot, but it will also be a magnanimous act of reconciliation," the resolution read. Escudero served as agriculture minister during the Marcos regime. His son, Sen. Francis Escudero, is a close ally of President Aquino. Among the lawmakers who signed the resolution were the late strongman’s wife, Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos, and her nephew, Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez. Former President and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her sons, Ang Galing Pinoy party-list Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo and Camarines Sur Rep. Diosdado Arroyo, also signed the resolution. Celebrity lawmakers Cavite Rep. Lani Mercado-Revilla and Leyte Rep. Lucy Torres-Gomez were also signatories to the resolution. House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. did not sign Escudero’s resolution. Marcos, president from 1965 until he was ousted in 1986, died while in exile in Hawaii in 1989. His remains were brought home in 1993, four years after his death, and preserved in his hometown of Batac, Ilocos Norte where he still lies in state in an air-conditioned mausoleum. President Aquino, whose mother replaced Marcos as president, has asked Vice President Jejomar Binay to decide on the burial issue of the former strongman, citing "personal bias" on the issue. Ninoy Aquino, the president's father, was assassinated in 1983 as he arrived in Manila, a crime widely blamed on the Marcos regime. - KBK/HS, GMA News
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