The planned burial of former president Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig will not happen on Sep 18.
The Supreme Court extended the status quo ante order to Oct 18. It was set to expire on Sep 13, originally.
The decision derails the burial plans for the late dictator, which had been promised and approved by President Rodrigo Duterte and protested by martial law victims, their families, and many Filipinos.
During the oral arguments on Wed, Sep 7, solicitor general Jose Calida defended the government’s position on the controversial issue.
Emphasizing that the president wants to help the nation heal and move forward, Calida said that the controversy was “beyond ambit of judicial review.”
“Unfortunately, the wisdom and propriety of President Duterte’s well-meaning desire to put a closure in this divisive issue has pinched the nerves of some who cannot forget their travails during the martial law era,” he told the justices in a report by Interaksyon.
Calida maintained that there would be no state honors for Marcos but only a simple mortuary rites suitable for a former president, commander-in-chief of the armed forces and a soldier.
He said that Marcos was never “discharged from military service nor convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude.”
