4-Week Impasse Persists Over Marcos’ Mother

Msgr. Domingo Nebres raised his hands toward heaven in the small funeral chapel of the San Jose Sanctuary and uttered a Requiem prayer over the remains of the 95-year-old woman before him.

“Let us pray to God,” Nebres said, “that at least the eldest son will be able to come home in order to reconfirm the beautiful traditions of our culture and country. Let us pray to God that mother and son will be united once again on that funeral day.”

The prayer, delivered Tuesday evening in a monotone, almost mechanically, was one that Nebres knew well. He had said it every night for 28 consecutive nights, over the same coffin in the same room. Many Filipinos think this ranks among the longest wakes in the history of this Roman Catholic country.

Still, this rite would scarcely be noticed in a land as accustomed to death as is the Philippines, except for the identity of the deceased woman’s absent son--former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Pressure to Return

Ever since May 4, when Josefa Edralin Marcos died of heart failure in a Manila hospital, Marcos and his family have tried to use the death to pressure the U.S. and Philippine governments to allow him to return home from Hawaii, where he has lived in exile since his ouster in 1986. The Marcoses have issued almost daily statements in Honolulu, first pleading for permission to return to bury his mother, then threatening to return with or without permission.

President Corazon Aquino has said several times since the death of Mrs. Marcos that despite the apparent heartlessness of her decision, Marcos will not be allowed to come home. His return, she has said, would tend to destabilize this country’s young democracy.

The U.S. government, which has controlled Marcos’ movements since it offered him asylum in 1986, has said officially that it will prevent him from returning unless the Aquino government changes its position.

The result is a bizarre political standoff, and the Marcos relatives who stayed behind when the president fled have become reluctant participants.

Used Against Aquino

Politicians still loyal to Marcos have used the continuing wake as an issue to attack Aquino on human rights matters. And Marcos loyalists, taking advantage of the Philippine tradition of sons attending their mothers’ funerals, have drawn large crowds to a series of often-violent street demonstrations demanding that Marcos be allowed to return.

For one demonstration, more than 2,000 people turned out Wednesday in a torrential rain. Some carried signs declaring, “Give Us Marcos or Give Us Death” and displayed bumper stickers pleading, “Let Him Come Home.” Onlookers tossed confetti and shouted encouragement.

As the demonstrations have gone on, week after week, the government has taken steps to prevent Marcos from trying to force his way back into the country. The Philippine armed forces has closed the airport in Ilocos Norte, Marcos’ home province. Concrete barriers and heaps of gravel have been scattered over the runway. The Philippine Consulate in Honolulu has been told to monitor Marcos’ movements closely.

Marcos supporters have tried to use the government’s moves to bolster their cause. Rafael Recto, an attorney who represents Marcos here, said Wednesday in response to the allegation that Marcos’ return would destabilize the government: “It is the minds of those in government that are unstable. They’re scared. They’re still afraid of him. They’re realizing that the Filipino people now are more and more sorry that he left.”

Interest Waning

Outside the relatively small circle of Marcos supporters, there is little basis for such boasts. In the view of many political analysts, interest in the controversy over Marcos’ mother is waning, and this is considered a strong sign that Marcos has all but disappeared from the political scene he dominated for two decades.

Although several thousand people have attended each of the dozen or so pro-Marcos rallies since his mother’s death, they are largely poor Manilans, some of them street urchins rewarded with a free lunch and, occasionally, money.

The nightly Masses for Mrs. Marcos are now attended by fewer than 100 people, most of them homeless Manilans who have been allowed by the church to camp out on the grounds of the chapel. They are given food by Marcos loyalists.

The controversy has made it onto the front pages of most Manila daily newspapers, but more often than not the articles have focused on the question of how long a human body can reasonably be kept out of the grave. None of this has had much effect on the people who have stayed with the coffin.

“This is not crazy,” said Consolacion Peralta, who proudly displayed a button that said, “I love Ferdinand Marcos.” She said she has slept, eaten and prayed beside Mrs. Marcos’ body for a month.

Bodies of Lenin, Mao

“Lenin was not buried,” she said. “What’s wrong if Mrs. Marcos is not buried until the son comes home, no matter how long that takes? I read in the newspaper that even Mao Tse-tung was never buried.”

For Marcos’ immediate family, largely apolitical, the long stalemate has clearly begun to take a toll.

“It’s really starting to get on our nerves,” said Pacifico Marcos, 69, the deposed president’s younger brother, a gynecologist whose practice has kept him aloof from his brother’s political wars.

“It’s partly the waiting, but most of it is the problem we have been having with infiltrators--the bad eggs, the drunks and drug addicts who are coming into the church for food and shelter and upsetting the neighbors.”

Neighbors Complain

The church where Mrs. Marcos’ body has been lying in state is situated in one of Manila’s wealthiest subdivisions, and the neighbors have been complaining about the Marcos loyalists’ behavior.

“If the people in the village ask us to leave, of course we will move the body elsewhere,” said Pacifico Marcos, who lives in the subdivision.

How long, he was asked, is the family prepared to wait until they decide to bury the mother?

“If my family thinks it’s time to bury the old lady, we will have to follow that advice,” he replied. “It is really up to my older brother (Ferdinand). But I hope it will not last any longer than (another) week, more or less, and I hope less.”

A Marcos sister, Fortuna Barba, the deposed president’s only other living sibling, said that she too hopes the stalemate is near an end.

“We were planning to move her and bury her in our hometown last week,” she said, “but we have some news that the political situation may be changing in America, and my brother may be permitted to come home. I guess you could say we’re being over-optimistic.”

U.S. Embassy Denies Shift

U.S. Embassy sources in Manila denied that the Reagan Administration has changed its policy on Marcos, and the sister said she hopes the burial can take place within the coming week at the latest if her brother is not allowed to leave Hawaii.

Until then, the rallies continue, along with the nightly services at San Jose Sanctuary.

Msgr. Nebres, who once served as chaplain of Marcos’ presidential guard, was asked after Tuesday night’s service if he was tiring of delivering the same sermon night after night.