From: news@netnews.upenn.edu (USENET News System)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: No State Funeral for Ferdinand
Date: 20 Aug 92 15:57:28 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.filipino
Organization: University of Pennsylvania


	MANILA, Philippines (UPI) -- Former first lady Imelda Marcos Thursday
gave up hope for a state funeral for her late husband, agreeing to ship
his remains directly to the ousted dictator's home province for burial
next month.
	The widow of deposed President Ferdinand Marcos signed an agreement
with the government Wednesday requiring her to fly the body from Hawaii
to the northern Philippine city of Laoag Sept. 1.
	After a traditional wake in Marcos' hometown of Batac, 250 miles from
the capital, the remains would be interred in time for his 75th birth
anniversary Sept. 11, the agreement said.
	President Fidel Ramos Thursday reiterated the government's stand
banning a Manila funeral for the former dictator, saying that a
committee was studying ``appropriate military honors'' to be given
during the burial.
	Ramos, however, clarified that the ceremonies would not amount to 
``full military nor state honors.''
	``We will have an interim funeral in Ilocos Norte by the side of his
mother,'' Mrs. Marcos told reporters. Marcos' mother, Josefa, died in
1988.
	Asked if the family was giving up on a state funeral, Mrs. Marcos
said: ``For the time being, it looks like that is the way. We just have
to accept all these conditions in the hope that we will be able to just
finally bring home the remains of the late president.''
	Marcos was driven to exile in a popular military revolt in 1986. He
died in 1989 in Hawaii, where his body has been kept in a refrigerated
crypt.
	Ramos and his predecessor, Corazon Aquino, banned a Manila burial for
the deposed president, fearing the body's presence in the capital might
provoke unrest and disrupt a fragile economic recovery.
	Marcos' son, Rep. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., filed a resolution early this
week asking that his father's remains be allowed to lie in state at the
presidential palace in Manila. He said the body should also be given a
state funeral ``befitting a former president.''
	The resolution was signed by almost half of the 200-member House of
Representatives, but was severely criticized by senators and the late
president's political foes.
	``What exactly are we honoring him for?'' said Aquino, who led the
People Power revolt that ended Marcos' increasingly corrupt 20-year
rule.
	``We owe it to the Filipino people to give the state's highest
recognition only to those who served them honorably,'' said the former
president, who blames Marcos for the Aug. 21, 1983 assassination of her
husband.
	Former Senate leader Jovito Salonga, who was jailed by Marcos when he
declared martial law in 1972, said he was ``against the distortion of
truth, the perversion of justice and the repudiation of our long,
continuing struggle for freedom and human dignity.''
	He said giving state honors was ``something that Nicaragua has not
done for Anastacio Somoza, nor Haiti for (Jean Claude) Papa Doc
Duvalier, nor Uganda for Idi Amin -- all of them contemporaries of the
late president.''
	Marcos was accused of massive corruption and political repression
during his rule. His widow faces nearly 80 criminal and civil suits for
her alleged role in the plunder of the country.