Story highlights Surprise announcement follows protests and a quashed court appeal

Police chief only found out 24 hours ago that the burial would take place

Manila (CNN) Former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos has been buried at the National Heroes' Cemetery in Metro Manila.

The surprise decision to give the former dictator a hero's burial Friday has triggered protests by opponents who had launched a court challenge to have the burial stopped.

The burial marks the end of a three-decade-long campaign by his family to have his remains buried in the cemetery, the national monument known as "Libingan ng mga Bayani" in Tagalog.

Many Filipinos object to his interment in the heroes' cemetery, given how brutal his rule was. Thousands were imprisoned and tortured under Marcos' reign. He ruled with an iron fist for two-and-a-half decades until his ouster in the 1986 "People Power" revolution.

He died in 1989, three years after being exiled to Hawaii. His body was eventually brought back to a mausoleum in the family's stronghold of Ilocos Norte, in the Philippines' northeast, where it had remained until today.

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