Former Philippines President Fidel Ramos has been laid to rest in a state funeral, hailed as a former general who backed and then helped oust a dictatorship and became a defender of democracy and a can-do reformist in his poverty-wracked Asian country.
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Ramos died on July 31 aged 94 from COVID-19 complications at the Makati Medical Center in the capital region, his family said. He also suffered from a heart condition and dementia and had been in and out of hospital in recent years, former aides said.
An urn containing the ashes of the US-trained general, who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars, was on Tuesday placed in a flag-draped coffin, which was carried by six pallbearers amid sombre music.
His cremated remains were placed in his grave after a funeral procession led by honour guards and his family, which was showered with flower petals from two helicopters. The ceremony, which was broadcast live nationwide by state-run and major TV networks, was attended by newly elected president Ferdinand Marcos Jr, and was capped by a 21-gun salute.
The Department of National Defence, which was once led by Ramos, said he was a decorated soldier who spearheaded the modernisation of the military, one of Asia's most underfunded. He organised the elite special forces of the army and the national police.
The cigar-chomping Ramos, known for his "we can do this" rallying call to Filipinos, thumbs-up sign, attention to detail and firm handshakes, served as president from 1992 to 1998, succeeding democracy icon Corazon Aquino.
She was swept into the presidency in 1986 after the largely peaceful "People Power" revolt that toppled the dictator and became a harbinger of change in authoritarian regimes worldwide.
Marcos, his family and cronies were driven into US exile, where he died in 1989.
In his last State of the Nation address before a joint session of Congress in 1997, Ramos said only sustained development, a modernised agriculture, industrialisation and adequate infrastructure would allow the country to wipe out poverty. But he stressed it was crucial for Filipinos to safeguard democracy.
"We cannot allow our democracy to wither -- because Philippine democracy is our unique comparative advantage in the new global order," Ramos said then. "Without freedom, economic growth is meaningless. And so, freedom, markets, and progress go together."
One of his legacies was the 1996 signing of a peace pact between his government and the Moro National Liberation Front, the largest Muslim separatist group at the time in the volatile southern Philippines, homeland of minority Muslims.
Ramos' calm bearing in times of crises, including the 1997 Asian financial crisis, earned him the moniker "Steady Eddie."
A son of a longtime legislator and foreign secretary, Ramos graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1950. He was a part of the Philippine combat contingent that fought in the Korean War and was also involved in the Vietnam War as a non-combat civil military engineer.
Australian Associated Press