The burial of late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos at the country’s heroes’ cemetery will take place on Sept 18, China’s Xinhua news agency reported, citing local media reports today.

The daily newspaper, The Philippine Star, quoted Marcos’s son as saying that the date has been agreed upon during the family’s meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the presidential palace earlier this week.

Senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr disclosed the details of the burial during lunch yesterday with selected editors of The Philippine Star.

The report quoted Marcos Jr as saying the Marcoses have started preparations for the interment rites that include a 21-gun salute military honours.

Marcos Jr also told the Philippine Star that he and his elder sister, Ilocos Norte governor Imee Marcos, have been coordinating with the Armed Forces of the Philippines that administers the heroes’ cemetery.

The burial of Marcos in the heroes’ cemetery has been a divisive issue in the Philippines.

But Duterte said he would allow the burial to “erase hatred” and initiate healing in the country.

“I will allow the burial of president Marcos at the Libingan ng mag Bayan (heroes’ cemetery) not because he is a hero but because he was a Filipino soldier. Period,” Duterte told a news conference in May.

Marcos died in Hawaii in 1989. His body, which was brought back to the Philippines in 1993, is now on display inside a glass box in an air-conditioned crypt in the family’s ancestral home in Laoag, north of Manila.

- Bernama