Stop burning the ashes of Marcos

Vociferous demonstrations and bare butts do not a successful protest make. The numbers do. Numbers are more eloquent than the brains in the buttocks of uncircumcised baboons for whom our taxes are spent so they can evolve better than the simians. They haven't. They still relish their favorite pastime of nit-picking.

What drove them to go bananas was the furtive manner the late President-turned-dictator was buried in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. Why was the frozen cadaver of Marcos interred without the usual dirge? They were angry at the Supreme Court and Pres. Rodrigo Duterte for sticking to the law rather than the moral issue surrounding the entombment of a man at the LNMB who ruled the nation for 12 murderous years and pillage the government coffers dry.

But why are their numbers so few and pipsqueak despite the help of professional dissenters like Renato Reyes and a cacophony of dissent from politicians who are stuck like barnacles and some approaching rigor mortis to whatever vestiges that remain in the two chapters of Aquino governments.

Hoping the protest will gather crowd and momentum, VP Leni Robredo hardly caused a stir when she attempted to trivialize Duterte's sexist remark about her exposed knee along with her stand against the Marcos burial. Since when did a knee become a subject of national interest and condemnation?

The pathetic ex-Sen. Rene Saguisag came out from the blue and blasted at Duterte I almost can hear his sepulchral yet articulate and stinging rebuke at the President for departing from the traditional norm of Aquino necrological-driven politics of which he was among the chief architects.

Sen. Leila De Lima, of course, sees comfort in the little tempest stirred by the millennial and kindergarten kids courtesy of religious nuns but for that gave her a little respite. The sympathy she elicits from the religious sisters and from the politicized bishops however seemed to wane for how can the pretenders to piety reconcile her frailty as a woman when she actually lords it over men? Pope Francis must be very angry if he finds this out.

Never mind Sen. Kiko Pangilinan. He wants the waxed remains of Marcos exhumed. I do not know which side of the bed is he sharing with Sharon, a Cuneta, whose celebrated wedding sponsor in her first wedding was Pres. Ferdinand Marcos himself. Sharon's father, was among the favored local executives of the real Maccoy. Whether Kiko and Sharon are on the same platform on the brouhaha over her Ninong's burial can be best seen in the menacing stare and the heavy eye bags in the senator's Facebook posts.

Someone asked me whether Duterte is worried about the protests. Why is he having bum stomach in Peru and later was rumored to have some serious problems with his health? I said I really do not have any idea, but that all I know is what he said that any Tom-Dick and Harry can stage a demonstration without the necessity of a government permit. That is confidence in any language.

Duterte knows his history more than what his detractors do. He knew what moved the mass to action. Marcos was ousted because the murder of Ninoy Aquino triggered it in an already volatile condition that pervaded. The hardly perceptible motion from the people on the burial of Marcos at the Libingan can only be attributed to the people's ennui over Marcos and the Aquinos. The 3 thousands in Luneta, a handful in Cebu and 200 in Davao City or round in up to even 20K. It's no reason to celebrate but reason enough to think why in a place where the Yellow Friday movement was born the din of the sound and fury has lost its decibel.

President Duterte made no bone about adopting some of the programs of Marcos, Aquino, GMA and Ramos. We cannot fault him in that as he spanned their years of governance at the advent of his political consciousness. Cory Aquino appointed him Vice Mayor of Davao City. If Marcos weighed more to him than others I could only attribute that to what he sees as a Mindanaowon. And he is not alone in that. Marcos energized 80% of Mindanao, built irrigation systems in rice-growing provinces in the region, constructed bridges and network of concrete highways and farm to market roads.

We have to accept other people's perspective and respect it. Duterte is President now and has a lot of things to do for the country. If we want him to succeed, we should put a break to this bickering and stop burning the ashes of our enemies. We have forgiven Spain, America and Japan for all their bestialities and atrocities for the hundreds of years they subjugated us. Let history judge Marcos. (

Mr. Jun Ledesma is a community journalist who writes from Davao City and comments from the perspective of a Mindanaoan.)