Campaigners rail at Rodrigo Duterte's plan to honour Ferdinand Marcos

The Philippine Supreme Court has ordered the government to put on hold a divisive plan to bury former dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a heroes’ cemetery, a court spokesman said.

A plan supported by president Rodrigo Duterte to bury the former president in the cemetery has been criticised by human rights groups and many politicians, including vice-president Leni Robredo and senators allied with former president Benigno Aquino.

The 15-member high bench of the court, responding to a petition filed last week by opponents of the plan, told the government not to do anything on the issue for 20 days, said Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te.

Mr Te did not elaborate on why the court had issued the order but said it had called for arguments from both sides to help judges decide the issue before the planned burial on September 18.

As a dictator in the 1970s and 1980s, Mr Marcos, his family and cronies amassed an estimated €9bn in ill-gotten wealth and thousands of suspected communist rebels and political foes were killed. His wife, Imelda, denies amassing wealth illegally.

In 1986, he was ousted in a ‘people power’ revolt and fled to Hawaii, where he died three years later. His remains were returned in the early 1990s and have been kept in a family mausoleum in his hometown in the north.