Four years after his death in exile, Ferdinand Marcos was buried in a glass coffin Friday amid thousands of admirers who blame his ouster on a U.S.-led conspiracy.
Following a Mass, his widow Imelda, famed for her 1,200 pairs of shoes, removed her golden footwear and walked barefoot into the stone mausoleum, where the coffin was placed on a black pedestal near an eternal flame.The body is clad in a white, native Barong long-sleeved shirt, black trousers and a rainbow-colored chest sash bearing medals from World War II. Marcos' head rests on a white pillow.
Marcos was ousted in the 1986 "people power revolution" and banished to Hawaii, where he died on Sept. 28, 1989. His successor Corazon Aquino refused burial here. But her successor Fidel Ramos, a Marcos cousin, permitted burial in Marcos' home province Ilocos Norte, where he is still revered.
Ramos did not attend and refused state honors befitting a former president. He sent his sister, Sen. Leticia Shahani, as his representative.
Critics say Marcos and his associates embezzled up to $10 billion during his 20 years in power, although the charges have never been proven in court.
"He never could have imagined the depth which the ambitious and power-hungry would sink," said Marcos' only son, Ferdinand "Bong Bong" Jr., in a eulogy outside the family mansion after the mass. "These conspirators perfected their pact with the devils, compromising the country for their personal desires."
The remarks by the younger Marcos were a clear reference to leaders of a mutiny, including Ramos and then-Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, which triggered the 1986 revolution.
Sen. Arturo Tolentino, Marcos' running-mate in the fraud-marred 1986 election against Aquino, blamed Marcos' downfall on a U.S.-led conspiracy because the late president sought better terms for the continued presence of American military forces.
"Unfortunately, it was this nationalism of Marcos that caused his downfall from the presidency," Tolentino said. He said that through the American media, "the world was made to believe that the Marcoses were ousted by the Filipino people."