Aquino Ready to Let Marcos’ Body Go Home; Widow Objects to Plan

MANILA — President Corazon Aquino, reversing an earlier ban, said Wednesday that she is ready to allow the remains of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the authoritarian president ousted in 1986, to be buried in the Philippines.

But she said his corpse should be flown from Hawaii directly to his hometown in the north of the country instead of going to the capital--a condition quickly rejected by his widow, Imelda Marcos.

“My husband’s dying wish was to be buried in Manila. This was his choice. I am his wife, and I will not violate his word on my honor. I pray that those who love and honor him would respect his last wish,” Imelda Marcos said in a statement in New York.

Aquino has long barred Marcos’ corpse from returning to the Philippines on the grounds that it could be used for political purposes to destabilize the government.

But on Wednesday, she lifted the ban by agreeing to a suggestion by lawmakers from the northern Philippines who said the body should be flown to Laoag, Marcos’ hometown, about 250 miles north of Manila.

“What they were recommending was that the body be flown to Laoag. We are in conformity with that,” Aquino told reporters after meeting a group of 29 lawmakers from the northern Philippines who made the proposal.