FORMER President Marcos’s tomb at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) is already more than 50-percent complete, although his family has yet to come up with the date of the interment, the Army said on Tuesday.
“The burial site is already 60-percent finished, but there has been no date set yet for the burial. We are just waiting for whatever order…date,” said the Army spokesman, Col. Benjamin Hao.
“The Army is ready for the burial, we will follow orders,” he added.
Hao said the construction for Marcos’s final resting place is being undertaken by a private contractor hired by the Marcos family, which is also partly paying for the work.
While the military has a budget for the construction of the tomb, the Marcos family is chipping in for the expenses, in order to “improve the burial place of the former President,” he added.
The late strongman’s remains will be buried at the 5,000-square meter Presidential Section inside the LNMB, where former Presidents Elpidio Quirino, Diosdado Macapagal and Carlos Garcia were buried.
Hao said the area has a spot or can accommodate 46 more other leaders.
Victims of human-rights violations during the imposition of martial law are opposing the former dictator’s burial at the LNMB , claiming it was an insult to the memory of those who perished during the dictatorship.
Hao said the Army will give honors to Marcos that befit a former President.
“We will provide former President Marcos military honors fitting a [former] President of our country. He will be given arrival honors by the Army,” he said.
Hao said Marcos will be given three volleys of rifle fire by a squad of soldiers, although Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said earlier the honor will be given to Marcos as a soldier and not as former President.
Lorenzana said such honor is given to soldiers who are being interred at the LNMB.
