MANILA, Philippines -- The booboos at the People Power monument Monday could have been enough to ignite President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's infamous temper, had she attended the event.

Vice President Noli de Castro, Former Vice President Noli de Castro, former president Fidel V. Ramos, Military Chief General Hermogenes Esperon Jr., and Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita failed to raise the Philippine flag after it got stuck at the summit while the national anthem was being sung at the start of the program.

Assisted by the military Honor Guards, they continued to pull the white rope, but it did not budge an inch. Esperon then approached the flag pole, positioned himself ahead of De Castro, and signaled the rest of the dignitaries to continue pulling the rope so hard it finally gave way just before the national anthem ended.

But the show must go on. Esperon and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chair Bayani Fernando led others in using the next flag pole -- one of the smaller ones flanking the giant flag pole -- and finally raised the flag, to the relief of the officials and members of civilian, police and military establishments gathered at the EDSA monument.

?You know Murphy's Law?? Ermita explained. ?If things are about to happen, they are bound to happen.?

?Let's not give a bad meaning to such things ... and give a positive spin to the real benefits of EDSA,? he said.

But that was not all. The event marking the ouster of strongman Ferdinand Marcos was marred by other technical snafus -- broken sound system, wrong lyrics and white and yellow confetti which did not initially fall on the stage but elsewhere.

After a prayer service, singer Renz Verano sang a medley of songs associated with the 1986 People Power revolt, including "Bayan Ko [My Country]" and "Pilipinas kong Hirang [My Beloved Philippines]."

Verano had to sing accapella at one point when the sound system broke down.

And he sang the last line of the song wrong. He said: "Ang laya mo'y babantayan/Pilipinas kong mahal" instead of "Pilipinas kong hirang", as some of those on stage, including former senator Agapito "Butz" Aquino, raised their clenched fists in the air.

While singer Girl Valencia was singing ?Magkaisa? at the end of the ceremony, a helicopter circled above four times and dropped confettis. It missed the stage during its first try, eliciting chuckles from the crowd.

Some of the shredded telephone directory pages dropped in lumps. One of the balls of paper landed on one television cameraman's lens.

On the helicopter's second flyover at the monument, the confetti dropped as planned, with the bright morning sun highlighting its yellow color.

The program ended at 8:15 a.m. after Ramos led the traditional ?EDSA jump.?

President Arroyo, meanwhile, spent the morning launching a pro-poor program in Caloocan City. That, she said, was the true spirit of people power, uplifting the lives of the poor.

The monument of the EDSA highway was named after a 1986 uprising that toppled the Marcos dictatorship. Monday's anniversary celebration was the first that the President did not attend in her six years in office.

Arroyo, who was swept to power by a military-backed uprising dubbed People Power 2 in 2001, is fighting off fresh calls for her to resign amid allegations her husband, Jose Miguel, and former elections chief Benjamin Abalos Sr. received kickbacks from the alleged overprice of the government's $32-million broadband deal with China's ZTE Corp.