INQUIRER.net poll: Netizens divided on hero’s burial for Marcos

DAVAO CITY—Netizens are divided on the proposal of presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte to allow the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, based on the Facebook and Twitter surveys posted by INQUIRER.net.

The question posed to netizens was: “Bury the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani?”

On the poll posted on the INQUIRER.net’s Facebook page, 71 percent of the respondents agreed to the proposal and 23 percent thumbed it down while five percent said they didn’t care.

The Facebook poll had 10,866 votes.

The results are different on Twitter. About 46 percent of the respondents did not want the late dictator buried in the said cemetery, 45 percent said they agreed to it while 9 percent were indifferent.

A total of 2,990 Twitter users answered the poll.

In an early morning press conference here on Thursday, Duterte justified his decision to grant Marcos a hero’s burial.

#INQPoll: Bury president Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani?

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) May 26, 2016

He said that while some Filipinos may disagree with the opinion that Marcos was a hero, the late President deserved to be interred at the Libingan ng mga Bayani because he was a soldier.

“Look, there [are] the courts. Pumunta kayo ng korte kasi yung taong hinahabol niyo, cadaver na. (Go to the courts because the person you’re after is already a cadaver.) What do you want more from the guy? Patay na nga (He’s already dead) … Sabi niyo si Marcos, hindi dapat diyan [ilibing] (You said Marcos should not be buried there). That is [on] the question of his abuses. It is something that is attached to his person forever. Marcos might not really be a hero, I accept that proposition, maybe. But certainly he was a soldier,” Duterte said./rga