A week-long commemoration of the 1986 'people power' uprising that toppled Ferdinand Marcos has coincided with a rekindling of the Marcos-Aquino rivalry that once dominated politics in the Philippines.
Two presidential candidates promised on Monday to give Marcos' refrigerated corpse a hero's burial if they win, as part of attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of the late dictator. Adding to the indignation of the anti-Marcos camp, his widow, son and daughter are running for seats in the House and Senate.
Imelda Marcos is contesting in her late husband's Ilocos Norte stronghold, but she is saddled with more than 100 pending criminal and civil court cases, alleging the couple stole from state coffers.
Eldest daughter and three-time congresswoman Imee is running in a neighbouring congressional district, while Marcos' only son, Ferdinand 'Bongbong', is seeking a senate seat. His family said a nationwide senate victory for Bongbong, the present Ilocos Norte representative and former governor, would amount to a vindication of his father.
Denied a state funeral on grounds that he plundered the nation and committed human rights abuses, Marcos' embalmed body, encased in a glass coffin, has been the top tourist attraction in Ilocos for the past 17 years. Three presidents, including Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, tried to bury him with state honours but public fury stopped them.
Bongbong, 52, said this week that his father did much better than his successor, the late Corazon Aquino. '[The uprising] was a failure! Poverty worsened and the government was not able to clean up the bureaucracy,' he said, referring to the highway on which hundreds of thousands of people blocked Marcos' tanks in a revolt.