Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile stressed this during a dialogue with Senate reporters where he said it can not be denied that Marcos “saw the muzzle of the guns of the Japanese in Bataan’’ and endured the historic Bataan Death March.

After he was released in Tarlac, the detention center for death march veterans, Marcos “went to the underground like most of us and fought the Japanese all the way to the end of the war’’ as a member of the United States Armed Forces Northern Luzon, said Enrile, himself a WW II guerrilla.

“This generation of Filipinos fought a foreign power that invaded us. I think all of them are entitled to be buried in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. Regardless of whether medals or no medals he, as a soldier who fought that war, is entitled to be buried in Libingan, and I am not denigrating the people who are denying that right or objecting to it. I don’t think they ever saw the muzzles of the guns of a foreign enemy and confronted them,’’ said Enrile, the defense minister during the Marcos administration.

Enrile was referring to critics who claimed that not all the medals awarded to Marcos for his exploits during the war were well deserved.

Enrile said Marcos deserved to be buried at the cemetery reserved for heroes not as a former President of the Republic but as a soldier who “fought a war for the country, for the Filipino people when he was a young man.’’

Since last month, the Marcos family had been waiting for Vice President Jejomar C. Binay to set the date on when he would be available for discussion on the issue of whether or not the Aquino administration would allow the late President to be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani in Taguig City.

Sen. Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., son of the late President, had told the Manila Bulletin that Binay was in the middle of his consultations with other parties or groups on their opinions on the burial issue before he meets with the Marcos family “since we have set meetings with him.’’

President Aquino, son of the late President Corazon C. Aquino and the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. who was assassinated during the latter part of the Marcos administration, had given Binay the task of determining the issue of whether or not Marcos should be buried at the Libingan.

The late President died in exile in Hawaii on Sept. 28, 1989. His remains were transported to the Philippines in 1992 during the Ramos administration.

During her tenure, then President Corazon C. Aquino refused to allow the return of the remains of the older Marcos from Hawaii.

The remains of the late President are still at the family compound in Ilocos Norte.

The younger Marcos had said that he hoped Binay would take into consideration the resolution authored by Sorsogon Rep. Salvador Escudero and approved by more than 200 members of the House of Representatives favor-ing the burial of the remains of the former President at the Libingan.

Mario Casayuran, Manila Bulletin