Human rights victims who suffered during the regime of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos filed petitions yesterday asking the Philippine Supreme Court to order the exhumation of his remains that were buried last week at the country’s Heroes’ Cemetery.
They also want the court to hold his heirs and officials involved in contempt for carrying out the burial before the court had heard final appeals against it.
Left-wing former lawmaker Saturnino Ocampo and other advocates urged the court to hold Marcos’ widow, Imelda, their three children, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Delfin Lorenzana and two military officials in contempt for “the hasty, shady and tricky” burial on Friday of the long-dead president at the cemetery.
Photo: AFP
They should be fined and detained for mocking the legal process that gave petitioners 15 days to appeal the court’s Nov. 8 ruling allowing the burial, the petition said.
Philippine opposition Congressman Edcel Lagman, who represents another group of petitioners, sought a court order to have the remains exhumed “because the hasty and surreptitious interment was premature, void and irregular.”
Lagman asked that the remains be examined to determine they are not a wax replica.
The secrecy-shrouded burial at the cemetery reserved for presidents, soldiers and national artists shocked democracy advocates and human rights victims, prompting street protests across Manila and in other cities.
Ferdinand Marcos, whose rule was marked by massive rights violations and plunder, was ousted by a largely nonviolent army-backed uprising in 1986. At the height of the political turbulence, he flew to Hawaii, where he lived with his wife and children until he died in 1989.
Groups opposed to the burial called for a national day of protest on Friday at Manila’s Rizal Park and in other parts of the country.
Organizers called on Filipinos to protest against the public’s desire not to bury Marcos in the cemetery and to hold Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for allowing the burial and the court for obscuring “the crimes of the dictator.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of