MANILA: Pope Francis flew home Monday after a weeklong trip to Asia.
President Benigno Aquino III, Catholic church leaders and about 400 street children saw him off at a Manila air base, where the pontiff, carrying a black travel bag, boarded a Philippine Airlines plane for Rome. Standing at the top of the stairs, the pope waved, slightly bowed his head before the crowd and then walked into the plane.
Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Filipinos lined Manila’s streets to get a final glimpse of 78-year-old Francis aboard an open-sided, white popemobile.
Amid the thick crowds, a man climbed up a tall ladder and unfurled a poster with a handwritten farewell message: “Dear Pope Francis, We love you!”
Francis dedicated his four-day trip to the Philippines to the poor, marginalized and victims of injustice. He denounced the corruption that has robbed them of a dignified life, visited with street children and traveled to the eastern city of Tacloban to meet survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, the deadly 2013 storm that devastated one of the country’s poorest regions.
Officials considered canceling the pope’s flight to Tacloban on Saturday due to stormy weather, Marciano Paynor Jr. , who helped oversee government preparations for the papal visit, told ABS-CBN TV. The trip went ahead but had to be cut short because of the weather.