MANILA, Philippines -- Ferdinand Marcos surrendered the presidency of the Philippines and flew into exile at dawn Wednesday aboard a U.S. Air Force plane. Washington immediately recognized the new government of Corazon Aquino.
Filipinos stormed the gates of the presidential Malacanang Palace on learning Marcos was gone and began looting the ornate Spanish-style mansion. Thousands poured into the streets of Manila and other cities, while motorists honked horns and waved at each other.
At least one person was reported killed and 27 injured Tuesday and Wednesday,bringing the unofficial death toll in the four-day rebellion that toppled Marcos to 14, with another 55 reported injured, at least nine seriously.
Marcos, 68, was carried on a stretcher into the U.S. Air Force C-9 Nightingale medical evacuation plane at the giant American Clark Air Base and flew to Guam, landing in torrential rain on the U.S. Pacific island three hours, 40 minutes later.
Arriving in Guam, Marcos walked down the airplane staircase without assistance but looked 'frail,' said Guam's Acting Governor Edward D. Reyes, a member of the greeting party for the deposed leader.
Reyes said Marcos was scheduled to leave Guam for Honolulu by 9 a.m. EST.
It had been expected that Marcos would be taken to U.S. Naval Regional Medical Center at Agana, Guam, but Reyes said Marcos had a doctor with him on the plane.
A half-dozen anti-Marcos protesters stood in the rain outside the air base, which was sealed off to reporters awaiting the arrival of the Marcos entourage at the end of the 1,500-mile flight from the Philippines.
Marcos, forced to yield power in the face of the insurgency growing from charges of fraud in the Feb. 7 presidential election against Aquino, fled the Philippines less than 12 hours after he insisted on taking the oath for another six-year term.
The man who dominated the Philippines since 1965 agreed to leave the nation in an agreement to exchange his office for safe passage for himself and his family.
In all, 55 people -- Marcos, his family and political supporters - flew into exile on two planes, Pentagon officials said in Washington.
The former president's wife, Imelda, and Marcos's former military chief of staff, Gen. Fabian Ver, flew on the same C-9 Nightingale plane with Marcos. A C-141 Starlifter carried other members of the Marcos party.
The Marcos group, in blue military cars with a police motorcyle escort, went to the Hilton Hotel in Agana, taking an isolated, two-lane back road, windshield wipers swishing and headlights on.
White House officials said they did not know know how long Marcos would stay on Guam or what his final destination would be. Secretary of State George Shultz said Marcos could find 'safe haven' in the United States.
U.S. officials believe Marcos suffers from a series of afflictions, including a disease called Lupus, in which healthy organs, including the kidneys, are sometimes attacked by the body's immune system.
The revolution began Saturday with the defection of Marcos Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Deputy Armed Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Fidel Ramos and culminated Tuesday with the inauguration of Aquino and recognition of her government and role by the United States.
'The United States extends recognition to this new government headed by President Aquino,' Shultz said in Washington. 'We pay special tribute to her for her commitment to non-violence, which has earned her the respect of all Americans.'
The 53-year-old Aquino appeared on state-run television early Wednesday to announce a new beginning.
'The long agony is over,' she said. 'We are finally free and we can be truly proud of the unprecedented way we achieved our freedom, with courage and with determination and, most important, in peace.
'A new life starts for our country tomorrow,' Aquino said, 'a life filled with hope and I believe a life that will be blessed with peace and progress.'
But at the presidential palace and an adjacent administration building, thousands of people brushed aside seven military guards and began carting off everything in sight. Soldiers shouting, 'Cory, Cory!' removed barricades on approaches to the palace.
The mobs, screaming, 'Long live Cory!' and 'Marcos is a thief!' tore portraits of Marcos and his wife from the walls and set them on fire, ripped chandeliers from the ceilings and hurled government records out the windows.
The Marcoses' bedrooms and his specially built medical clinic, were guarded by Aquino supporters and kept intact. A kidney-dyalysis machine was found in a palace clinic, giving credence to persistent reports that Marcos suffered from a degenerative kidney ailment.
Marcos began his final two days in the Philippines by taking the oath office in tears Tueaday as the disputed winner of the election against Aquino. The next morning he abandoned the presidential Malacanang Palace, flying by U.S. Air Force helicopter to Clark Air base for an eight-hour stay.
The announcment of his decision to step down came in Washington, where Shultz said: 'President Marcos is welcome to come to the United States, but I don't believe any decision has been made by him about where he will go.'
Shultz said Ver, Marcos's military chief of staff, also would be allowed in the United States.
'President Marcos was reluctant to leave his post, but at any rate he has decided to do so,' Shultz said, 'so it has been possible to resolve this issue in a way that is peaceful and non-violent and in a way that allows an emergence of a consensus in the Philippines.'
In Manila, Ramos cautioned against plundering the presidential palace.
'That is not the property of Mr. Marcos,' he said. 'That is the property of the people ... We have started right. Let us not destroy this now that we have reached victory.'
But bedlam reigned throughout the capital.
Automatic weapons were fired into the air, and state-run television reported people identified with a left-wing labor union broke into the palace armory and carted away an undetermined number of M-16 military rifles. An angry mob knocked one Marcos supporter to the ground and began stoning him.
Marcos loyalists briefly tried to drive demonstrators away from the palace, opening fire on the crowd and throwing stones, wounding 27 people and killing one before troops backing Aquino arrived drove them away.
In her first orders, Aquino appointed Enrile, 62, as defense minister and promoted Ramos, 58, to a full general and named him chief of staff of the new 'Armed Forces of the People.'
In a series of directives, Aquino called for the resignation of all appointed government officials, beginning with members of the Supreme Court, but asked civil servants 'to stay in place.'
Cardinal Jaime Sin, the archibishop of Manila, said, 'In the midst of all this jubilation, we should be humble in victory. After Good Friday comes Easter Sunday. After winter comes spring.'
For its reputation as a safe harbor, the United States has only rarely taken in deposed rulers seeking exile.
A survey of the world's deposed rulers during the past half century indicates that those who survived their change of government tended to stay close to home or else picked nations with similar customs or language.
Some rulers who had enjoyed American support, such as Haiti's Jean-Claude Duvalier and the Shah of Iran, found U.S. hospitality limited.
Washington provided the airplane that spirited Duvalier and his family from Port-au-Prince to France earlier this month, but will not take in the former president-for-life. It is not clear where Duvalier will wind up.
The shah, overthrown in 1979, got medical treatment in the United States, but had to travel to a Panamanian island and finally to Egypt before finding a place to live. He died in Cairo in July 1980.
Among the few ex-leaders who have ended up in America is Nguyen Cao Ky, South Vietnam's prime minister from 1965 to 1967 and then vice president until 1971. He moved to a Los Angeles suburb to run a liquor store.
Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled his nation Jan. 1, 1959, and lived in Miami for a while before moving on to Spain and the Atlantic island of Madeira, where he died.
Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza Debayle also went to Miami when he fled from Managua in July 1979 -- but he didn't stay, moving to Paraguay where he was assassinated in July 1980.
More often, it has been the world's opposition figures who have found a temporary home in the United States.
Recent guests have included Benigno Aquino of the Philippines - whose assassination in August 1983 marked the beginning of Marcos' downfall -- and Kim Dae-jung of South Korea, who returned to his native land last year.
History's most famous exile ruler perhaps was Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, who was exiled first to the Mediterranean island of Elba in 1814 and then banished to the South Atlantic island of St. Helena in 1815 after a 100-day attempt to regain his empire that ended at the Battle of Waterloo. He died on St. Helena in 1821.
Among other exile rulers:
-Jaafar Numeiry assumed office in the Sudan in 1969, introduced martial law in April 1984 and was ousted in April 1985 while visiting the United States. He now lives in Egypt.
-Norodom Sihanouk, the rotund, mercurial prince of Cambodia, ruled his nation for 19 years before being ousted in March 1970. He has since become the leader of a rebel movement fighting a fierce war in his Southeast Asian land. He accepted a haven in Peking for a time, and resides in North Korea and France.
-Idi Amin crushed Ugandan Prime Minister Milton Obote in a January 1971 coup and ruled until April 1979, when he fled. He now lives in Saudi Arabia, which reportedly pays all his bills and treats him as a head of state.
-Jean-Bedel Bokassa seized power in the Central African republic in 1965 and proclaimed himself emperor for life in a $25 million coronation ceremony in 1977. He was deposed by the French government in a September 1979 coup. He lived for a year in the Ivory Coast and then 1983 arrived unexpectedly in France, where he had seven villas. He has remained there since.
-Juan Domingo Peron of Argentina made Buenos Aires harbor his first exile home after being ousted in 1955. He eventually went to Spain and returned to power in October 1973. His wife, former cabaret dancer Maria Isabel Peron, took over on her husband's death in July 1974 and was deposed in March 1976. She was under house arrest for five years and flew to self-imposed exile in Spain in June 1981.
-King Constantine II of Greece ascended to the throne in March 1964 but lost power in a coup in April 1967. He tried his own countercoup in December 1967, failed and fled to Italy, where he lived several years before moving to London.
