In Manila, riot police took up positions yesterday in the Philippine capital's financial centre as several hundred supporters of jailed former president Joseph Estrada demonstrated outside the stock exchange.
Police expect the Makati district crowd, some of them carrying aluminium pipes and sticks, to swell on orders of one of Estrada's sons for tens of thousands of others gathered at a northern Manila shrine to head towards Makati.
"Let us show the ruling class that we Filipinos have the right to rule," Estrada's son Joseph Victor Ejercito said in a radio broadcast over a pro-Estrada station at dawn.
The Estrada supporters had been keeping vigil at the historic Virgin Mary shrine along a Manila throughfare since Estrada was jailed pending his trial on charges of plundering the nation of $80 million.
They have demanded his release and reinstatement.
Cardinal Jaime Sin urged Filipinos to gather at President Gloria Arroyo's palace to defend "duly constituted authority".
"It is immoral to grab power, it is immoral to support those who are flouting duly constituted authority," said the influential cardinal, who was among the key backers of Estrada's ouster.