4 Years After His Death, Marcos Is Buried

Ferdinand E. Marcos was buried today, four years after his death in exile, in colorful services attended by his loyal supporters but shunned by the masses of Filipinos who banished him from power.

The body of the late president, who died in exile in Hawaii on Sept. 28, 1989, was carried by 10 retired generals into a stone mausoleum next to his family home, where a funeral Mass was held earlier.

Marcos’ widow Imelda, dressed in a black veil, and his son and two daughters followed for private, family rites. Later, the body will be displayed within a glass coffin beneath the Seal of the Presidency and in front of an eternal flame.

Several thousand supporters crowded this small farming community for the rites, which occurred three days after his body was returned from Hawaii.

But the wake and burial failed to draw the 1 million people that some Marcos supporters had predicted.

After a Mass on the ground floor of the two-story Marcos mansion, the flag-draped casket was removed to a reviewing stand in front of the home and a few yards from the mausoleum.

During brief eulogies, prominent Marcos loyalists blamed his downfall on his “nationalism” in demanding better terms from Washington for the continued stay of U.S. military bases, rather than on mass revulsion at corrupt and authoritarian rule.

Marcos’ widow reportedly hopes the burial will galvanize her husband’s supporters and re-establish the family’s position in Philippine politics.

Corazon Aquino, who succeeded Marcos after the 1986 “people power uprising,” barred Marcos’ burial in the Philippines. Her successor, Fidel Ramos, a Marcos cousin, agreed to burial here in the late president’s home province of Ilocos Norte but not in Manila as Imelda Marcos wanted.