LBC & Assoc.

LLB 135N EH 406

Borromeo, Oliver
Co, Ernest Adrian Fernandez-Co
Lim, Joseph Humbert Michael

AFP Regulation G 161-375 speaks of two disqualifications: the first is dishonorable

discharge, and the second is conviction of crimes against involving moral turpitude. The
former dictator falls under both.

I would like to share with you a Japanese proverb. . In English

it means: The tragedy begins when one forgets. The Japanese, like us groaned under a
military dictatorship that committed abuses to Human Rights. Unlike us, those
responsible have been brought to justice and have apologized for their crimes. They never
forgot.

Your honor, the respondents abused their discretion by forgetting that the former
President Marcos has been dishonorably discharged by the people in the EDSA
revolution. What could be more dishonorable a discharge for a head of state to be brought
down by his people as illegitimate?

The respondents abused their discretion by forgetting that this former president has
committed various crimes against the Filipino people involving moral turpitude such as
murder, torture, and so on. The weight of which would do an injustice to the spirit of the
law if the magnitude of his crimes do not amount to moral turpitude. It would make a
mockery of the purpose of the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani.

Would it please the court that we share an account of a victim of Human Rights here?

. . . [T] hey tore my dress and then eventually they let me lay down to
sleep but then early in the morning the two soldiers who stayed near me started
torturing me again and by today's definition, it is rape because they fondled my
breasts and they inserted a long object into my vagina and although I screamed
and screamed with all my might, no one seemed to hear except that I heard the
train pass by. . ."
This was Ma. Cristina Pargas Bawagan, a Petitioner and Human Rights Victim of the
Marcos Regime.

No less inhuman was the treatment to our client Saturnino Ocampo. He was one of those
held longest between 1976-85; he also had the utter misfortune of being subjected to
many of the worst forms of torture. He was electrocuted in the genitals, nipples, and
forehead, had his head banged repeatedly against a wall and was made to lie naked on a
block of ice. At one point, he was made to eat human feces. He was also slapped several
times in the ears; as a result, he said his hearing was affected.
LBC & Assoc. LLB 135N EH 406
Borromeo, Oliver
Co, Ernest Adrian Fernandez-Co
Lim, Joseph Humbert Michael

A fair or reasonable person would see that the perpetrator is undeserving of such an
honor. The truth of this matter is self-evident to those who remember the horrors.
The respondents would have us believe that despite all this, that the AFP regulation does
not prohibit his burial hence it is lawful to do so.

To allow such a strict reading of the law would be violative of the harmony in
interpretation of laws as well as the spirit of the Constitution, laws, policies, and
jurisprudence, these repudiate such treatment to the dictator; it also violates the principle
of equity as Article 10 of the Civil Code contemplated and as the Supreme Court averred
in Bello v. Court of Appeals that it is the essence of judicial duty to construe statutes so
as to avoid such deplorable results and that a literal interpretation is to be rejected if it
would be unjust or lead to absurd results.

Let us never forget. Let us never forget the victims of this regime. Never again.
To close, I would like to impart the words of the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
"For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness
for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of
a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only
dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a
second time."