Dictators can be as inconvenient when they are dead as they were troublesome when they were alive. That’s the case with the preserved remains of the Philippines’ last dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, who died in exile in 1989. His family brought the corpse back to his home of Batac in 1993, but want him buried at the nation’s heroes’ cemetery in Manila. Successive democratically elected presidents have refused repeated importuning by the family. Now, the administration of President Benigno Aquino, whose father was murdered by Marcos’ thugs, says he can be buried with military honours, but at Batac, not the heroes’ cemetery.
