Marcos in Hawaii for final leg of US trip

The Marcoses entered what could be their darkest days in 1986, when the dictatorship was toppled and the family banished to Hawaii while hounded by allegations of human rights violations and corruption.

- ALEXIS ROMERO

More than three decades later, President Marcos, who was in his late 20s when his father and namesake was ousted in a popular revolt, returned to Hawaii as the leader of the Philippines to reconnect with people who did not abandon them during their lowest point.

Marcos, now 66, was nostalgic when he faced the Filipino community yesterday, heaping praises on people whom he said "kept the body and soul of the Marcos family."

He said the Marcoses landed at Hickam Air Force Base from Malacañang in 1986 with nothing. According to the President, Filipinos provided them with clothes, appliances and other necessities, keeping his family "literally alive."

"We could not have survived that very difficult period if not for you," the President told a crowd of about a thousand people at the Hawaii Convention Center.

"And that is something that I will carry in my heart, that the Marcos family will carry in our heart. We tell our children about this and how wonderful you all were to us in the time that we were here," he added.

Marcos said people do not believe him whenever he tells the story of his family's exile.