Lawyer’s group opposes Manong Jhonny’s Libingan ng mga Bayani burial

The planned burial of Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile "Manong Jhonny" at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LMB) was strongly opposed by the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL), citing his role as enabler of martial law abuses and warning that this is an attempt to whitewash history.

The NUPL said the move is similar to the effort to distort history when the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was buried in the same cemetery, which, the group said, should only be for those who are worthy of emulation.

“The laws that exposed the criminality of the Marcos dictatorship also presuppose the responsibility of those who sustained it. To bury Enrile at the Libingan is to disregard the harm inflicted under martial law and undermine the foundations of reparations, asset recovery, and transitional justice,” the group said.

They pointed out that under Republic Act 289, the Libingan ng mga Bayani is meant to “perpetuate the memory of all the Presidents of the Philippines, national heroes and patriots for the inspiration and emulation of this generation and generations still unborn.”

It said that those laid to rest in the cemetery should have “moral fitness.”

The NUPL said the LMB is not a sanctuary for those who dismantled democracy or presided over systematic abuse, adding it was created for “inspiration and emulation”—standards that neither Marcos nor Enrile ever met.

The Congress and the courts have recognized the abuses under the Marcos regime, hence the creation of the Presidential Commission on Good Government for the recovery of the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth, and the passage of a law providing remuneration to martial law victims, the NUPL said.

It emphasized that this also applies to Enrile, citing his key role during martial law when he served as Marcos’ defense chief.

The NUPL said, “As Defense Minister, Enrile stood at the center of martial rule: mass arrests, detention, torture, disappearances, media shutdowns, and the dismantling of civil liberties.”

It also said that Enrile’s parting of ways with Marcos in 1986 does not erase the decades he spent shaping and enforcing the regime Filipinos ultimately rose to overthrow.

The group urged the government and the Filipino people to put a stop to efforts to “sanitize the legacy of tyranny.”

The longtime public official passed away on 13 November at the age of 101 after being hospitalized for pneumonia.