ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the politics of graveyards, and in particular, heroes’ cemeteries. Following the transition of Ferdinand Marcos’ corpse from the United States up to the Heroes’ Cemetery in Manila, where the body was stealthily entombed last November 2016, the study asks why the other memorial parks were ‘not enough’ for the patriarch. To answer this question, the chapter closely reads four memorial sites – the Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and the Valley of the Temples in Hawaii; the Ferdinand Marcos Presidential Center and Mausoleum in Ilocos Norte; and the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Manila. Through a reflection on the intersections of national cemeteries, heroism and cultural memory, the study shows how such site-specific itinerary produces a narrative which blurs the lines of pilgrimage and tourism in order to extend the Marcoses’ mnemonic entrepreneurship.
