Ousted Philippine ruler Ferdinand Marcos returned for the last time to his hometown Thursday to lie in rest beside his mother.
Crowds estimated by police at between 20,000 and 30,000, some in tears, gave the late president an emotional reception when a gray hearse brought his flag-draped coffin to the town of Batac, 250 miles north of Manila.Bands struck up separate dirges when the hearse carrying the body of the late president entered a university campus as a horse-drawn carriage bearing the corpse of his mother simultaneously entered through another gate.
They were reunited on a flower-covered platform where the coffins lay side by side for more than two hours before the mother was buried in the town cemetery.
Marcos' mother, Dona Josefa, died five years ago.
Marcos' remains were to stay overnight in his family's mansion until he is interred Friday.