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MANILA - Hundreds of thousands of mourners, many in yellow, have lined the streets and braved rains and strong winds to escort former President Corazon Aquino to her final resting place at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque Wednesday.

Carried by a ten-wheeler flat bed truck, Mrs. Aquino's coffin left Manila Cathedral in Intramuros at 11:30 a.m. with an estimated crowd of 30,000. The crowd ballooned as Mrs. Aquino's funeral convoy reached Roxas Boulevard with police estimates placing the throng at 200,000 from Intramuros to Parañaque.

Men and women, standing at least 10-feet-wide on both sides of the road, openly wept as the truck crawled through the swelling crowd for the 18-kilometer (11-mile) journey.

A military helicopter flew low overhead, sprinkling the crowd with yellow confetti denoting the colour of Aquino's "people power" revolt, while ships anchored on nearby Manila Bay blared their horns.

Several mourners broke through the security cordons to touch the hearse. Many shouted her name and threw flowers onto the truck where four members of the Armed Forces stood in silence on each corner of the coffin.

Some of the mourners such as Rachelle Singson de Mesa, 55, came from faraway provinces. De Mesa arrived from Laoag City Wednesday morning.

"I love President Cory. I want to see her the last time," she told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.

Mrs. Aquino, 76, died last August 1 after more than a year-long battle with colon cancer. The former president is credited with restoring democracy after the1986 EDSA Revolution that removed President Ferdinand Marcos from power and catapulted her to the presidency.

In his homily at the Manila Cathedral, Fr. Catalino Arevalo said Aquino made him proud again to be a Filipino after her presidency ended 20 years of Marcos rule.

"Now you belong with the immortals, but these words are for the mortals with bruised hearts who have lost the mother of the people. Perhaps a little less elegantly, a seminarian told me last Monday, she was only the true queen our people had ever had. She was queen because we knew she truly held our hearts and in the gentleness and greatness of her own," he said.

Feels like 1983

Ballsy Aquino-Cruz, eldest daughter of the former president, said the funeral procession of her mom reminded her of the crowds that came for the funeral of their dad, Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., in 1983.

"Same feeling, I guess, in 1983 when we were taking Dad to Manila Memorial Park. Although we didn't expect this. We're just so grateful for the love they are showing Mom and our family," Aquino-Cruz told ANC.

More than 100,000 people gathered on the whole stretch of Roxas Boulevard to pay their last respects to the former president and democracy icon.

On the other hand, at least two million people lined the streets of Manila for the funeral procession of the late Sen. Aquino after his assassination on Aug. 21, 1983. The senator's death, which had been blamed on then strongman Ferdinand Marcos, is widely viewed as having precipitated the fall of martial rule and the restoration of Philippine democracy.

Ballsy said the decision of the Marcos children, Bongbong and Imee, to visit Cory's wake on Tuesday was very much appreciated.

"I'm glad I did it and I appreciated the gesture. I was telling Karen [Davila] it wasn't easy for them to do that being in a place where most people were unfriendly to the Marcoses. For them to go there meant a lot to me and my siblings.I thought that was the least I could do. Thank them," she said.

Kris Aquino, the former president's youngest daughter, echoed her older sister's reaction about remembering their dad's funeral, but with a difference.

"The difference then was we had our mom. Losing dad was very painful. I remember I was going to International School then. Almost everyday I would be crying in school and my Mom would pick me up. The problem now is that, with all this pain, wala ng Mom eh. There's no Mom who would comfort us and that's the big difference," she said.

She said Ballsy has stepped up to the position of taking care of the Aquino siblings.

"Ate [Ballsy] always finds a way to comfort all of us. The burden I think really falls on her shoulers. When my Mom was alive and we had certain things we couldn't tell her, kay Ate namin idadaan because she had a way of saying things in such a polite way and making everybody understand each other," she said.

She said that after her mom's funeral, the Aquino family will be visiting other churches that have offered Mass for her mom. Among the places that the Aquino clan plans to visit are the EDSA Shrine and Don Bosco Church.

Final resting place

Aquino was to be laid to rest alongside her husband Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, who was gunned down at Manila airport in 1983 as he returned home to challenge the dictator Marcos.

President Gloria Arroyo, whom Aquino had turned against over accusations of corruption in the Arroyo administration, made a brief pre-dawn visit to the cathedral to pay her last respects.

She shook hands with the former leader's son, opposition Sen. Benigno Aquino, and prayed briefly over the casket.

Mrs. Arroyo cut short a visit to the United States following Aquino's death on Saturday and was met by Aquino relatives.

But she was pointedly excluded from the invitation-only mass that was also attended by two past presidents, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, and foreign diplomats.

The family had rejected Mrs. Arroyo's offer to hold a state funeral, reflecting the icy relationship between the only two Filipino women to have led the fractious and impoverished Southeast Asian nation of 90 million people.

Vice President Noli de Castro was the lone senior government representative at the Mass, which was broadcast live on television and on giant monitors outside the church.

Two children of Marcos paid their respects on Tuesday and the late dictator's flamboyant wife Imelda said a reconciliation between the families could prove a "miracle for the Philippines".

East Timor President and Nobel Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta also visited the cathedral early Wednesday.

In a statement marking the funeral, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Aquino's "courage was vital to returning her country to constitutional democracy."

"The outpouring of sympathy and national solidarity is just tremendous. We hope that Cory's life would continue to inspire Filipinos to fight tyranny whenever and wherever it is present," said Renato Reyes Jr. of the militant group Bayan. With reports from Carmela Fonbuena, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak and Agence France-Presse