CRUZ, J., dissenting:

Nothing important has happened to change my vote for granting the petition. The death of Marcos has not plunged the nation into paroxysms of grief as the so-called "loyalists" had hoped. By and large, it has been met with only passing interest if not outright indifference from the people. Clearly, the discredited dictator is in death no El Cid. Marcos dead is only an unpleasant memory, not a bolt of lightning to whip the blood.

This only shows that if he was at all a threat to the national security when he was already moribund that feeble threat has died with him. As the government stresses, he has been reduced to a non-person (which makes me wonder why it is still afraid of him). His cadaver is not even regarded as a symbol of this or that or whatever except by his fanatical followers. It is only a dead body waiting to be interred in this country.

This is a tempest in a teapot. We have more important things to do than debating over a corpse that deserves no kinder fate than dissolution and oblivion. I say let it be brought home and buried deep and let us be done with it forever.