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No hero's burial for Filipino dictator

President Barack Obama and President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino III on September 24, 2010 in New York City. UPI/Spencer Platt/POOL
President Barack Obama and President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino III on September 24, 2010 in New York City. UPI/Spencer Platt/POOL | License Photo

MANILA, Philippines, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Philippine President Benigno Aquino III has rejected a recommendation that former dictator Ferdinand Marcos be given a Filipino hero's burial.

The suggestion by Aquino's vice president was met with an immediate not-on-my-watch rejection, the Filipino news Web site Sun.Star.com reported Wednesday.

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Marcos, who died in September 1989 and is buried in Hawaii, was a political rival of President Aquino's late father, Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino.

Aquino said it sends a "wrong message" to honor a person who inflicted suffering on the Filipino people with years of martial law.

Aquino had asked his vice president, Jejomar Binay, to determine how the public would react to allowing Marcos' remains to be returned to the Philippines.

Binay recommended a burial in Marcos' home province with state honors and not in the Filipino Cemetery for Heroes.

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