Philippine protesters celebrate 'People Power' ousting of Marcos Sr

Philippine protesters rallied to mark the 37th anniversary of the "People Power" revolution, which ousted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr's dictator father and sent the family into exile.

It was the first commemoration of the uprising since Marcos Jr took office in June 2022. He has praised his father's 20-year regime, which critics describe as a dark period of human rights abuses and corruption that left the country impoverished.

As leftist rock music blared over a loudspeaker, hundreds of protesters, including survivors of the elder Marcos's martial law crackdown that led to the killing, torture and imprisonment of thousands of political foes and critics, marched on the "People Power" monument in Manila in memory of the brutal era.

Some chanted "Marcos, Duterte all the same, fascist dictators", in reference to former president Rodrigo Duterte and his successor Marcos Jr, as about 200 police with shields stood by.

Organisers said "at least 1,500" people attended the rally.

Marcos Jr sent a large wreath of white flowers to the monument, which is near the city's main thoroughfare where the bloodless uprising against his father had been held.

In a statement, Marcos Jr recalled "those times of tribulation and how we came out of them united and stronger as a nation".

As an ailing Marcos Sr desperately clung to power in 1986, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital for four days in a military-backed uprising against his regime.