Former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos was buried with military honors at a heroes’ cemetery in Manila on Friday, almost 30 years after his death.
His burial spurred protests around the capital of Manila as many in the Philippines are angered by the way Marcos’s family had kept the timing of the burial secret.
Even the Vice President of the country, Leni Robredo likened the ceremony to “a thief in the night”.
“This is nothing new to the Marcoses – they who had hidden wealth, hidden human rights abuses and now hidden burial – with complete disrespect for the rule of law,” Robredo, who belongs to an anti-Marcos political party, said in a statement.
Marcos was a former soldier and guerrilla leader during World War Two,
The media was banned from the ceremony and waited outside the cemetery as a 21-gun salute was fired and a Philippine flag was handed to Marcos’ widow, Imelda.
Thousands of protesters rallied around Manila, some burning pictures of the late ruler.
President Rodrigo Duterte, gave the go ahead in August for the burial in fulfilment of his election campaign promise.
However the burial had been stalled by objections from human rights groups which the Supreme Court overturned last week.
“I was just being legally strict about it,” Duterte said in Lima, defending his decision to allow the burial.
“President Marcos was a president for so long and he was a soldier. So, that’s about it.
“Whether or not he performed worse or better, there is no study, there is no movie about it. It’s just the challenges and allegations of the other side which is not enough.”
Marcos’s eldest daughter, Imee Marcos, the governor of Ilocos Norte province, thanked Duterte for allowing her father, to be laid to rest with soldiers.
“At last, my beloved father’s last will to be buried with fellow soldiers was fulfilled today,” she said.
She also asked people to understand the family’s decision to keep the ceremony “simple, private and solemn”.
Past governments had blocked the burial, because they were either led by enemies of Marcos or bowed to public opinion, and the body had lain in a refrigerated mausoleum in Marcos’s hometown of Paoay since its return to the Philippines in the early 1990s.
