Libya has been rocked by unrest for almost two weeks and Qaddafi has launched by far the bloodiest crackdown in a wave of anti-government uprisings sweeping the Arab world. Human rights groups and European officials have put the death toll at hundreds, or perhaps thousands, though it has been virtually impossible to verify the numbers.

“I hope he’ll be like Marcos and stop the violence,” said Imelda Marcos, who met the Libyan leader in the 1970s to seek his help in quelling a raging Muslim rebellion in the southern Philippines.

Amid mounting civil unrest in February 1986 after Marcos declared himself winner in a rigged presidential election, his long-time defense minister and the No. 2 military commander along with hundreds of troops withdrew their support from his government. They then barricaded themselves in two military camps along metropolitan Manila's main thoroughfare called EDSA, drawing hundreds of thousands of people to the streets to rally behind them.

In an emotional drama shown live on television, the military commander — who was known for his ruthlessness — asked the ailing Marcos to just give the order for him to attack the mutineers, but Marcos waved him aside.

Four days later, on Feb. 25, 1986, Marcos and his family and most loyal friends were flown to Hawaii by US military transport planes, allowing his rival, Corazon Aquino, to assume the presidency.

Mrs. Marcos on Monday said that while many Filipinos were willing to fight to death with Marcos, her husband swallowed his pride in favor of saving lives and preventing a civil war.

The Philippine "people power revolution" has subsequently been replicated in other countries, the latest of which were in Tunisia and Egypt, with the rulers fleeing in the end to avoid bloodshed.
 

Meanwhile, the new Philippine foreign secretary has led an evacuation of hundreds of Filipinos out of troubled Libya’s capital in what his spokesman said Monday was a “heroic act” that risked his personal safety.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, who was appointed in an acting capacity last week, traveled by land from neighboring Tunisia with two other diplomats to Tripoli on Sunday then took about 400 Filipino workers back to Tunisia in a 55-vehicle convoy, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

Del Rosario’s two-and-a-half-hour trip late Sunday back to the Tunisian border region of Jerba with the Filipino workers aboard buses and vans passed off without any security problems, foreign affairs spokesman Ed Malaya said.

From Jerba, Del Rosario was arranging the evacuation of another 150 Filipinos out of Tripoli, Malaya said, adding that the diplomat did not plan to meet Qaddafi or any of his officials.

“It’s a heroic act,” Malaya said of del Rosario’s mission. “At severe risks to his personal safety and against the advice of some of his colleagues, he went to evacuate our workers as quickly as humanly possible,” he said.

A prominent group of overseas Filipino workers, Migrante International, however, said Philippine government officials acted too late in launching efforts to evacuate Filipinos when widespread violence had led to the closure of airports and a breakdown in communications in Libya.

“Filipinos now are facing confusion, fear and hunger there,” said Gary Martinez, who heads Migrante, adding his group has helped reach out to stranded Filipinos through emergency telephone hotlines and e-mail then passing on the details to officials.

Nearly 1,900 Filipinos have fled from Libya, where about 26,000 to 30,000 Filipinos work. About 400 have returned to Manila on evacuation flights arranged by their employers, officials said.

About 13,000 Filipinos in Libya work with multinational companies that signed contracts committing them to evacuate these workers out of the country in times of emergencies, Malaya said.

Nearly 10 percent of the Philippines’ 94 million people work abroad, and the money they send back to their families fuels domestic spending and economic growth. Their remittances last year rose 8.2 percent to $18.76 billion, according to the central bank.

Many overseas workers, however, have run afoul of other country’s laws or got caught in violence and conflicts such as the turmoil gripping the Middle East, sparking problems for the Philippine government.