The final act in bringing down Ferdinand Marcos drew to its crescendo 20 years ago in the Philippines. The people of this nation love palabas - a big show - and the massive People Power protests to remove a dictator who bilked the country of billions of dollars and smothered political dissent with martial law was neither a sombre nor violent affair, as a regime change in Haiti had been just weeks earlier.
Over three days in February 1986, the drama that unfolded was part passion play, involving the wife of a martyred opposition leader, part Shakespearean drama of a once-powerful monarch shorn of his powers, and involved a cast of several hundred thousand demonstrators using a Manila highway as its stage, chanting: 'Cory, Cory Cory!'
In a heavily guarded ceremony in Malacanang Palace shortly before noon on February 25, Marcos, mortally ill from a degenerative disease, had himself sworn-in for another term to prolong his 20-year presidency after claiming victory in a snap election.
Even by the standards of Philippine elections this had been a mockery of the electoral process, marred by goons intimidating voters, stolen ballot boxes, flying voters and even the dead making appearances on electoral rolls. After the brief ceremony, Imelda Marcos tearfully serenaded a few thousand loyalists gathered outside the palace, warbling her favourite song Dahil sa Iyo (Because of You) into a microphone.
Earlier in the day, across the city, Corazon 'Cory' Aquino, the widow of assassinated opposition leader Benigno Aquino, had already taken the oath of office as the seventh president of the republic. By nightfall, four US Marine helicopters were scrambled from Clark Air Base to evacuate Marcos and his entourage from the palace on the first leg of their journey into exile in Hawaii.
As the choppers returned to Clark with their exhausted crew, a jubilant crowd piled over railings and pushed through the palace gates.