Ferdinand Marcos

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino lawyer, politician, dictator, and kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981, granting himself expanded powers under the 1973 Constitution. Marcos described his philosophy as "constitutional authoritarianism". He was deposed in 1986 by the People Power Revolution and was succeeded as president by Corazon Aquino.
Marcos gained political success by exaggerating his actions in World War II, claiming to have been the "most decorated war hero in the Philippines". — United States Army documents described his claims as "fraudulent" and "absurd". After the war, he became a lawyer. He served in the Philippine House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the Philippine Senate from 1959 to 1965. He was elected president in 1965. He presided over an economy that grew during the beginning of his 20-year rule, but ended in the loss of livelihood and extreme poverty for almost half the Philippine population, combined with a debt crisis. He pursued infrastructure development funded by foreign debt, making him popular during his first term, although the aid triggered an inflation crisis that led to social unrest in his second term. Marcos placed the Philippines under martial law on September 23, 1972, shortly before the end of his second term. Martial law was ratified in 1973 through a fraudulent referendum. He ruled the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981, The constitution was revised, media outlets were silenced, and violence and oppression were used against the political opposition, Muslims, suspected communists, and ordinary citizens.
After his election to a third term in the 1981 presidential election and referendum, Marcos's popularity suffered due to the economic collapse that began in 1983 and the public outrage over the assassination of public opposition leader Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. that year. This discontent, the resulting resurgence of the opposition in the 1984 parliamentary election, and the discovery of documents exposing his financial accounts and false war records led Marcos to call a snap election in 1986. Allegations of mass electoral fraud, political turmoil, and human rights abuses led to the People Power Revolution of February 1986, which ultimately removed him from power. To avoid what could have been a military confrontation in Manila between pro- and anti-Marcos troops, Marcos was advised by US president Ronald Reagan through Senator Paul Laxalt to "cut and cut cleanly". Marcos then fled with his family to Hawaii. He was succeeded as president by Aquino's widow, Corazon "Cory" Aquino. Many people who rose to power during the Marcos era remained in power after his exile, including Fidel Ramos, a general who became president.
According to source documents provided by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the Marcos family stole US$5 billion–$10 billion from the Central Bank of the Philippines. The PCGG also maintained that the Marcos family enjoyed a decadent lifestyle, taking billions of dollars from the Philippines between 1965 and 1986. Upon his legacy, Marcos is widely regarded as among the most controversial figures in the Philippines, with its governmental rule formed an kleptocracy under Marcos's dictatorial regime was widely condemned, and his regime was infamous for corruption, extravagance, and brutality. His wife, Imelda Marcos, made infamous in her own right by excesses that characterized her and her husband's "conjugal dictatorship", is the source of the term Imeldific. Two of their children, Imee and Bongbong, became active in Philippine politics, with Bongbong being elected president in 2022. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos held the Guinness World Record for the largest-ever theft from a government for decades, although Guinness took the record down from their website while it underwent periodic review a few weeks before the 2022 Philippine presidential elections.
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos was born on September 11, 1917, in the town of Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, to Mariano Marcos (1897–1945) and Josefa Edralin (1893–1988). Mariano Marcos was a lawyer and congressman from Ilocos Norte, Philippines. He was executed by Filipino guerillas in 1945 as a Japanese propagandist and collaborator during World War II. Drawn and quartered with the use of carabaos, his remains were left hanging on a tree. Josefa Marcos was a schoolteacher who outlived her husband – dying in 1988, two years after the Marcos family left her in Malacañang Palace, they fled into exile after the 1986 People Power Revolution, one year before her son Ferdinand's death.
Marcos claimed that he was a descendant of Antonio Luna, a Filipino general during the Philippine–American War, a claim since debunked by genealogist Mona Magno-Veluz. He also claimed that his ancestor was a 16th-century pirate, Limahong (Chinese: 林阿鳳), who used to raid the coasts of the South China Sea. He is a Chinese mestizo descendant.
Marcos studied law at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Manila, attending the College of Law. He excelled in both curricular and extra-curricular activities, joining the university's swimming, boxing, and wrestling teams. He was an accomplished orator, debater, and writer for the student newspaper. While attending the UP College of Law, he joined Upsilon Sigma Phi, where he met his future colleagues in government and some of his staunchest critics.
Marcos attended the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) He served as an ROTC battalion commander and was commissioned as a third lieutenant (apprentice officer) in the Philippine Constabulary Reserve. He was a member of the rifle team and a national rifle champion.
When he sat for the 1939 Bar Examinations, he was a top scorer with a score of 92.35%. He graduated cum laude and was in the top ten of his class: future Chief Justice Felix Makasiar was their class salutatorian. He was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu and the Phi Kappa Phi international honor societies, the latter giving him its Most Distinguished Member Award 37 years later.
Marcos received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) (honoris causa) degree in 1967 from Central Philippine University.
Julio Nalundasan was a Filipino lawyer/politician and a political rival of Mariano Marcos's. He was killed with a single rifle shot at his home in Batac on September 21, 1935, after the day after he had defeated Marcos a second time for a seat in the National Assembly.
In December 1938, Ferdinand Marcos, his father Mariano, and his uncles, Pio Marcos and Quirino Lizardo were both accused of murder. According to two witnesses, the four had conspired to assassinate Nalundasan.
Ferdinand was a member of the University of the Philippines rifle team and a national rifle champion. Marcos's rifle was in its gun rack in the ROTC armory, that of team captain Teodoro M. Kalaw Jr. was missing.
The National Bureau of Investigation obtained evidence that Kalaw's rifle was the murder weapon. Ferdinand had access to the armory. Ferdinand and Lizardo were then convicted of the murder. Ferdinand was sentenced to 10 to 17 years in prison.
Marcos appealed to the Supreme Court of the Philippines. Justice Jose P. Laurel, who wrote the majority decision, had almost killed a rival during a youthful brawl. He was convicted by a trial court of frustrated murder, but was acquitted after his own appeal to the Supreme Court. Laurel pleaded for his colleagues to acquit. The Supreme Court overturned the lower court decision on October 22, 1940, acquitting both men of all charges except contempt.
After World War II, the American government became preoccupied with the Marshall Plan, attempting to revive Western European economies, losing focus on the Philippines, which gained independence on July 4, 1946. Marcos was one of eleven lawyers to act as a special prosecutor tasked to try by "process of law and justice" all those accused of collaboration with the Japanese. Eventually, Marcos ran for his father's old post as representative of the 2nd district of Ilocos Norte and won three consecutive terms, serving in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959.
Marcos joined the "Liberal Wing" that split from the Nacionalista Party, which became the Liberal Party. He later became the Liberal Party's economy spokesman, and chaired the House Neophytes Bloc which included future president Diosdado Macapagal, future Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez and future Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson.
Marcos then became chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Industry and member of the House Committees on Defense, Ways and Means; Industry; Banks Currency; War Veterans; Civil Service; and on Corporations and Economic Planning. He was also a member of the Special Committee on Import and Price Controls and the Special Committee on Reparations, and of the House Electoral Tribunal.
After serving in the House for three terms, Marcos won a Senate seat in 1959 and became Senate minority floor leader in 1960. He became executive vice president of the Liberal Party and served as party president from 1961 to 1964.
From 1963 to 1965, he was Senate President. He introduced significant bills, many of which were enacted.
Marcos ran a populist campaign emphasizing that he was a medalled war hero. In 1962, Marcos claimed to be the most decorated war hero of the Philippines by garnering almost every medal and decoration that the Filipino and American governments had established. Included in his claim of 27 war medals and decorations are those of the Distinguished Service Cross and the Medal of Honor. The opposition Liberal Party later confirmed that many of his war medals were awarded in 1962 to aid in his Senate election campaign. As a result, Marcos won the election.
Marcos was inaugurated as the 10th president of the Philippines on December 30, 1965.
He launched an aggressive program of infrastructure development funded by foreign loans. He remained popular for most of his first term; although his popularity got flagged after debt-driven spending which triggered an inflationary crisis in November and December 1969. Major projects included the construction of the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex, Which is considered one of the earliest examples of what became known as the Marcoses' edifice complex.
Marcos developed close relations with Philippine military officers and began expanding the armed forces by allowing loyal generals to stay in their positions past retirement age, or giving them government posts. He gained the support of the US Johnson administration by allowing Philippine involvement in the Vietnam War via the Philippine Civic Action Group.
Marcos's first term saw the exposé of the Jabidah massacre in March 1968, where Jibin Arula (a Muslim) testified that he had been the lone survivor of a group of Moro army recruits that had been executed en-masse on Corregidor island on March 18, 1968. The allegations became a major flashpoint that ignited the Moro insurgency.
One of President Marcos's earliest initiatives was to significantly expand the Philippine military. In an unprecedented move, Marcos chose to concurrently serve as his own defense secretary, giving him direct control over the military. He significantly increased the defense budget, tapping them for civil projects such as school construction. Marcos' policies led Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. to accuse Marcos in 1968 of trying to establish "a garrison state".
Under intense pressure from the Johnson administration, Marcos reversed his prior position of not sending Philippine forces to Vietnam, consenting to limited involvement. He then asked Congress to approve sending a combat engineer unit. Despite opposition, the proposal was approved and Philippine troops were involved from the middle of 1966 as the Philippines Civic Action Group (PHILCAG). PHILCAG grew to a strength of some 1,600 troops in 1968. Between 1966 and 1970 over 10,000 Filipino soldiers served in Vietnam, mainly involved in civilian infrastructure projects.
Attempting to become the first president of the third republic to be reelected, Marcos began taking massive foreign loans to fund the "rice, roads, and school buildings" he promised in his reelection campaign. With tax revenues inadequate to fund his 70% increase in infrastructure spending from 1966 to 1970, Marcos covered the gap with loans, creating a budget deficit 72% higher than the Philippine government's annual deficit from 1961 to 1965.
The Marcos administration continued this loan-funded spending throughout his reign, producing economic instability that continued for decades. Marcos's grandest first term infrastructure projects, especially the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex, marked the beginning of what critics would label his "edifice complex".
In March 1968 Jibin Arula was fished out of Manila Bay, after he was shot. He was brought to then-Cavite Governor Delfin N. Montano, to whom he described the Jabidah massacre, saying that numerous Moro army recruits had been executed by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on March 18, 1968. This became the subject of an exposé by Senator Aquino.
Although the lack of other living witnesses hampered the probe, it ignited the Moro insurgency in the Philippines. Despite numerous trials and hearings, none of the officers implicated in the massacre were convicted, leading many Filipino Muslims to believe that the "Christian" government in Manila had little regard for them. This created a furor within the Philippine Muslim community, especially among educated youth, and among Muslim intellectuals, who had had no significant involvement in politics. The Jabidah massacre costed many Filipino Muslims their belief in opportunities for integration and accommodation.
This eventually led to the formation of the Mindanao Independence Movement in 1968, the Bangsamoro Liberation Organization (BMLO) was created in 1969, and the consolidation of these various forces into the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in October 1972.
Marcos engaged in unofficial diplomacy with the Soviet Bloc, shaped by the Sino-Soviet split. The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 (PKP-1930), was an officially illegal organization that had endorsed Marcos in 1965. The formation of the China-aligned Communist Party of the Philippines led to government support of the Soviet-aligned PKP-1930. Some PKP-1930 members were appointed to positions within Marcos's government as salaried "researchers". Their connections were used as another channel of negotiation with the Soviet Union.
Marcos was reelected on November 11, 1969, in a landslide. He was the only Filipino president to win a second full term. His running mate, incumbent Vice President Fernando Lopez was also elected to a third full term as Vice President of the Philippines.
Marcos's second term was characterized by social unrest, beginning with the balance of payments crisis. Opposition groups began to form, with "moderate" groups calling for political reform and "radical" groups espousing radical-left ideology.
Marcos responded with military force. The most notable was the response to protests during the first three months of 1970 – a period known as the First Quarter Storm.
Another major event was the Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1971. In May 1972, a delegate exposed a bribery scheme in which delegates were paid to vote with the Marcoses that implicated Imelda Marcos.
On August 21, 1971, a fatal bombing occurred at a political campaign rally of the opposition Liberal Party at Plaza Miranda in Quiapo, Manila. Marcos blamed the Communist Party of the Philippines. He issued Proclamation No. 889, through which he assumed emergency powers and suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Oppositionists were accused as "radicals" and were arrested. This response ignored any distinction between moderates and radicals, already blurred since the First Quarter storm. This brought about a massive expansion of the underground socialist resistance, leading many moderate oppositionists to join the radicals. In 1972 a series of bombings in Metro Manila occurred. Marcos again blamed the communists, although the only suspects caught were linked to the Philippine Constabulary.
Marcos's second term effectively ended less than two years and nine months later, when Marcos established martial law.
Marcos's spending during the campaign triggered growing public unrest, and led opposition figures such as Senator Lorenzo Tañada, Senator Jovito Salonga, and Senator Jose W. Diokno to accuse Marcos of wanting to stay in power beyond the two term constitutional limit.
Opposition groups quickly grew in the campuses.
Media reports classified the various civil society groups opposing Marcos into either "moderates" or "radicals". The moderates included church groups, civil libertarians, and nationalist politicians who wanted political reforms. Radicals included labor and student groups who wanted more systemic political reforms.
Statesmen and politicians opposed to the increasingly authoritarian administration mostly focused their efforts on political efforts. Their concerns usually included election reform, calls for a non-partisan constitutional convention, and a call for Marcos to comply with the Constitutional term limit.
Proponents included the National Union of Students in the Philippines, the National Students League (NSL), and later the Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil Liberties (MCCCL), led by Senator Jose W. Diokno.
MCCCL rallies were remembered for their diversity, attracting moderate and radical camps; and for their scale, attended by as many as 50,000 people.
The other broad category of opposition groups were those who wanted more systemic political reforms, usually as part of the National Democracy movement. The Marcos administration included moderate groups under the radical umbrtella.
Groups considered radical by the media included:
When Marcos became president, ine policy and politics functioned under a postwar geopolitical framework. The Philippines was caught up in the anti-communist scare perpetuated by the US during the Cold War. Marcos and the AFP claimed that the Communist Party of the Philippines was a threat, even though it was still a small organization. Richard J. Kessler claimed that Marcos "mythologized the group, investing it with a revolutionary aura that only attracted more supporters".
The unrest of 1969 to 1970, and the violent reaction to the "First Quarter Storm" protests were watershed events in which Filipino students of the 1970s were radicalized against Marcos. Many students who had previously held "moderate" positions (i.e., calling for legislative reforms) became convinced that more radical social change was required.
Other events that radicalized moderates included the February 1971 Diliman Commune; the August 1971 suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in the wake of the Plaza Miranda bombing; the September 1972 declaration of martial law; the 1980 murder of Macli-ing Dulag; and the August 1983 assassination of Ninoy Aquino.
By 1970, campus study sessions on Marxism–Leninism had become common, and many students joined organizations associated with the National Democracy Movement (ND), such as the Student Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines (SCAUP) and the Kabataang Makabayan (KM, lit. Patriotic Youth) founded by Jose Maria Sison; the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK) was founded by a group of young writers.
The line between leftist activists and communists became blurred, as a significant number of radicalized activists joined the Communist Party of the Philippines. Radicalized activists from the cities began to be more extensively deployed in rural areas where some became guerillas.
By the time Marcos gave his State of the Nation Address on January 26, 1970, demonstrations, protests, and marches had broken out. Moderate and radical student groups became the protests' driving force, which lasted until the end of the university semester in March 1970, and came to be known as the "First Quarter Storm".
During Marcos's address, the moderate National Union of Students of the Philippines organized a protest in front of Congress and invited student groups to join them. Some protesting students harangued Marcos as he and Imelda left the Congress building, throwing a coffin, a stuffed alligator, and stones at them.
The next major protest took place on January 30 in front of the presidential palace. Activists rammed through the gate with a fire truck and charged the Palace grounds tossing rocks, pillboxes, and Molotov cocktails. At least two activists were confirmed dead and several were injured by the police.
Five more major protests took place around Manila before March 17, 1970 – what some media accounts later branded the "7 deadly protests of the First Quarter Storm". This included rallies on February 12; a February 18 rally that proceeded to the US Embassy where they set fire to the lobby; a "Second People's Congress" demonstration on February 26; a "People's March" on March 3; and the Second "People's March" on March 17.
The protests ranged from 50,000 to 100,000 people. Students had declared a week-long boycott of classes and instead met to organize rallies.
Violent dispersals of protests radicalized Filipino students against the Marcos administration.
Civil society groups and opposition leaders began campaigning in 1967 to initiate a constitutional convention. On March 16 that year, the Philippine Congress made itself into a Constituent Assembly and passed Resolution No. 2, which called for a Constitutional Convention.
Marcos was surprised by his critics by endorsing the move. Historians later noted that he was hoping the convention would allow presidents to serve for more than two terms.
A special election was held on November 10, 1970, to elect the convention delegates. The convention was convened on June 1, 1971, at Quezon City Hall. A total of 320 delegates were elected. The most prominent were former senators Raul Manglapus and Roseller T. Lim. Other delegates later became influential political figures, including Hilario Davide Jr., Marcelo Fernan, Sotero Laurel, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Teofisto Guingona Jr., Raul Roco, Edgardo Angara, Richard Gordon, Margarito Teves, and Federico Dela Plana.
By 1972, the convention had become bogged down by politicking and delays. Its credibility fell further in May 1972 when a delegate exposed a bribery scheme in which delegates were paid to vote in favor of the Marcoses – First Lady Imelda Marcos became implicated in the alleged scheme.
The investigation was shelved when Marcos declared martial law in September 1972, and had 11 opposition delegates arrested. The remaining opposition delegates were forced to go either into exile or hiding. Within two months, an entirely new draft of the constitution was created by a special committee. The 1973 constitutional plebiscite was called to ratify the new constitution, but the validity of the ratification was brought to question because Marcos replaced secret ballot voting with a system of viva voce voting by "citizen's assemblies". The ratification of the constitution was challenged in the Ratification Cases.
On December 29, 1970, Philippine Military Academy instructor Lt. Victor Corpuz led New People's Army rebels in a raid on the PMA armory, capturing rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, a bazooka and thousands of rounds of ammunition. In 1972, China, which was then actively supporting and arming communist insurgencies in Asia as part of Mao Zedong's People's War Doctrine, transported 1,200 M-14 and AK-47 rifles aboard the MV Karagatan for the NPA to aid its campaign to defeat the government.
A report by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that shortly after the presidential election, a group composed mostly of retired colonels and generals organized a revolutionary junta with the aim of discrediting and killing Marcos. The group was headed by Eleuterio Adevoso, a Liberal Party official. A document given to the committee by a Philippine government official alleged that Vice President Fernando Lopez and Sergio, Osmena Jr. were key figures in the plot.
As early as December 1969 in a message from the US Ambassador to the US Assistant Secretary of State, the ambassador said that most of the talk about revolution and even assassination had been coming from the defeated opposition, of which Adevoso was a leading activist. He also said that his information on the assassination plans was 'hard' (well-sourced) and he wanted it to reach President Marcos.
Unnamed former Communist Party officials alleged that "the Communist party leadership planned – and three operatives carried out – the Plaza Miranda attack in an attempt to provoke government repression and push the country towards revolution". Communist leader Jose Maria Sison had calculated that Marcos could be provoked into cracking down on his opponents, thereby driving political activists into the underground, the anonymous former officials said. Recruits were urgently needed, they said, to make use of a large influx of weapons and financial aid that China had agreed to provide." Sison denied these claims. The CPP never offered official confirmation of its culpability. Marcos and his allies claimed that Benigno Aquino Jr. was part of the plot, denied by Sison.
Some historians claim Marcos was responsible for the Plaza Miranda bombing as he is known to have used false flag operations as a pretext for martial law. US intelligence documents declassified in the 1990s contained evidence implicating Marcos, provided by a CIA mole within the Philippine Army.
Another false flag attack took place with the attempted assassination of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile in 1972. President Nixon approved Marcos's subsequent martial law initiative.
On August 21, Marcos issued Proclamation No. 889, through which he assumed emergency powers and suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
Marcos's act forced many members of the moderate opposition, such as Edgar Jopson, to join the radicals. In the aftermath of the bombing, Marcos lumped all of the opposition together and referred to them as communists. Many former moderates fled to the radicals' mountain encampments to avoid arrest by Marcos's forces. Those disenchanted with the Marcos administration often joined the ranks of the radicals as the only group vocally opposing Marcos.
On the evening of September 23, 1972, President declared martial law for the Philippines. This marked the beginning of a 14-year period of one-man rule lasting until Marcos went into exile on February 25, 1986. Even though martial law was formally lifted on January 17, 1981, Marcos retained virtually all of his powers until he was ousted by the EDSA Revolution. The first of these bombings took place on March 15, 1972, and the last took place on September 11, 1972, twelve days before martial law was announced on September 23 of that year.
Marcos's declaration became known on September 23, 1972, when press secretary Francisco Tatad announced that Proclamation № 1081 would extend Marcos's rule beyond the two-term constitutional limit. Ruling by decree, he almost dissolved press freedom and other civil liberties, closed down Congress and the media, and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders and militant activists, including Benigno Aquino Jr., Jovito Salonga and Jose W. Diokno. Marcos claimed that martial law was the prelude to creating his Bagong Lipunan, a "New Society" based on new social and political values.
The early years of martial law met public approval, as it was believed to have caused crime rates to drop.
However, unlike Ninoy Aquino's Senate colleagues who were detained without charges, Ninoy, together with communist NPA leaders Lt. Corpuz and Bernabe Buscayno, was charged with murder, illegal possession of firearms and subversion.
One of Marcos' rationalizations for martial law stated that there was a need to "reform society" by placing it under the control of a "benevolent dictator" who could guide the undisciplined populace through a period of chaos. He referred to this social engineering exercise as the bagong lipunan or "new society". His administration produced propaganda materials, including speeches, books, lectures, slogans, and numerous propaganda songs – to promote it.
According to Marcos's book Notes on the New Society, his movement urged the poor and the privileged to work as one for the common goals of society and to achieve the liberation of the Filipino people through self-realization.
The Marcos regime instituted a youth organization, known as Kabataang Barangay, which was led by Marcos's eldest daughter Imee. Presidential Decree 684, enacted in April 1975, encouraging youths aged 15 to 18 to go to camps and do volunteer work.
In October 1974, Marcos and PKP-1930 entered into a "national unity agreement" by which PKP-1930 would support New Society programs such as land reform, trade union reform, and including revitalized Soviet Bloc relations.
To instill patriotism among Filipino citizens and prevent the growing number of Chinese schools from propagating foreign ideologies, Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 176, preventing educational institutions from being established exclusively for foreigners or from offering curriculum exclusively for foreigners. It restricted Chinese language instruction to not more than 100 minutes/day.
Martial law was put to a vote in the 1973 Philippine martial law referendum which was marred with controversy resulting in 90.77% support.
Along with Marcos, members of his Rolex 12 circle such as Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, Chief of the Philippine Constabulary Fidel Ramos, and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Fabian Ver were the chief administrators of martial law. The three remained Marcos' closest advisers until he was ousted. Peripheral members of the Rolex 12 included Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr. and Lucio Tan.
Between 1972 and 1976, Marcos increased the size of the Philippine military from 65,000 to 270,000 personnel, in response to South Vietnam falling into the hands of North Vietnam and other communist successes in South East Asia. Military officers were placed on the boards of media corporations, public utilities, development projects, and other private corporations, most of whom were highly educated graduates of the Philippine Military Academy. Marcos also supported the growth of a domestic weapons-manufacturing industry and increased military spending.
Many human rights abuses were attributed to the Philippine Constabulary then headed by future president Fidel V. Ramos. Marcos organized the Civilian Home Defense Force, precursor of Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) to battle communist and Islamic insurgencies. It was accused of inflicting human right violations on leftists, the NPA, Muslim insurgents, and rebels.
By 1977, the armed forces had quadrupled and over 60,000 Filipinos had been arrested for political reasons. In 1981, Vice President George H. W. Bush praised Marcos for his "adherence to democratic principles and to the democratic processes". No American military or politician in the 1970s ever publicly questioned Marcos' authority to fight communism in South East Asia.
From the declaration of martial law in 1972 until 1983, the US government provided $2.5 billion in bilateral military and economic aid to Marcos, and about $5.5 billion through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank.
During the Carter administration (1977–1981) the relationship with the US had soured somewhat when Carter targeted the Philippines in his human rights campaign. Despite this, the Carter administration provided military aid to the Marcos regime.
A 1979 US Senate report stated that US officials were aware, as early as 1973, that Philippine government agents were in the United States to harass Filipino dissidents. In June 1981, two anti-Marcos labor activists were assassinated outside a union hall in Seattle. On at least one occasion, CIA agents blocked FBI investigations of Philippine agents. By 1984, US President Ronald Reagan started distancing himself from the Marcos regime that he and previous American presidents had strongly supported even during martial law. The United States, which had provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, was crucial in buttressing Marcos's rule over the years,
Pre-Marcos, the Philippines had maintained a close relationship with Taiwan's Kuomintang-ruled Republic of China (ROC) government. Prior administrations had seen the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a security threat, due to its financial and military support of communist rebels.
By 1969, however, Ferdinand Marcos started publicly asserting the need for the Philippines to establish a diplomatic relationship with the People's Republic of China. In his 1969 State of the Nation Address, he said:
In June 1975, President Marcos visited the PRC and signed a Joint Communiqué normalizing relations between the Philippines and China. Among other things, the Communiqué stated that "there is but one China and that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory..." In turn, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai pledged that China would not intervene in the internal affairs of the Philippines nor seek to impose its policies in Asia, a move that isolated the local communist movement that China had financially and militarily supported.
The Washington Post, in an interview with former Philippine Communist Party officials, stated that, "they (local communist party officials) wound up languishing in China for 10 years as unwilling "guests" of the (Chinese) government, feuding bitterly among themselves and with the party leadership in the Philippines".
The government subsequently captured NPA leaders Bernabe Buscayno in 1976 and Jose Maria Sison in 1977.
By 1977, reports of "gross human rights violations" had led to pressure from the international community. US President Jimmy Carter pressured the Marcos Administration to release Ninoy Aquino and to hold parliamentary elections to demonstrate that some "normalization" had begun after the declaration of martial law. Marcos did not release Aquino, but announced that the 1978 Philippine parliamentary election would be held.
The April 7 elections were for 166 (of the 208) regional representatives to the Interim Batasang Pambansa (parliament). The elections were contested by parties including Ninoy Aquino's new party, the Lakas ng Bayan (LABAN) and the regime's party known as the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL).
LABAN fielded 21 candidates for the Metro Manila area including Ninoy, activist Jerry Barican, labor leader Alex Boncayao, Neptali Gonzales, Teofisto Guingona Jr. Ramon Mitra Jr., Aquilino Pimentel Jr., journalist Napoleon Rama, publisher Alejandro Roces, and poet-playwright Francisco Rodrigo.
Irregularities noted during the election included "prestuffed ballot boxes, phony registration, 'flying voters', manipulated election returns, and vote buying", and LABAN's campaigning faced restrictions, including Marcos's refusal to let Aquino out of prison to campaign. All of the party's candidates, including Aquino, lost.
Marcos's KBL party won 137 seats, while Pusyon Bisaya led by future Minority Floor Leader Hilario Davide Jr., won 13 seats.
In 1978, Ferdinand Marcos became Prime Minister of the Philippines, marking the return of the position for the first time since the terms of Pedro Paterno and Jorge Vargas during the American occupation. Based on Article 9 of the 1973 constitution, it had broad executive powers typical of prime ministers in other countries. The position was the official head of government, and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. All of the previous powers of the President from the 1935 Constitution were transferred to the prime minister. The prime minister also acted as head of the National Economic Development Authority. Upon his re-election to the presidency in 1981, Marcos was succeeded as prime minister by an American-educated leader and Wharton graduate, Cesar Virata, who was elected as an Assemblyman (Member of the Parliament) from Cavite in 1978.
After amending the constitution and enacting legislative, Marcos issued Proclamation 2045, which lifted martial law, on January 17, 1981, without restoring habeas corpus for rebellion and subversion-related crimes. The lifting of martial law was synchronized with the election of US President Ronald Reagan and the visit of Pope John Paul II, to get support from Reagan and minimize Papal criticism.
On June 16, 1981, six months after lifting martial law, the first presidential election in twelve years was held. President Marcos ran while the major opposition parties, the United Nationalists Democratic Organizations (UNIDO), a coalition of opposition parties and LABAN, boycotted the election. Marcos won a massive victory.
Marcos' third inauguration took place on Tuesday, June 30, 1981, at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila. Then U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, future President of China Yang Shangkun and Thai Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda attended. At the inauguration, Bush had infamous praise for Marcos: "We love your adherence to democratic principles and to the democratic process."
Under martial law the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's army was a period of significant growth. This continued into the 1980s. The NPA established itself in urban areas while the NDF formed relationships with legal opposition organizations – all despite Marcos' claims in January 1981 that the conflict had been "substantially contained". The killing of key leaders in Davao city in the opening years of the 1980s led the administration to claim that the CPP "backbone" in the south had broken," But the remaining leaders soon began to experiment with new tactics including urban insurrection, leading the international press to label Davao City as the "Killing Fields", and as "the Philippines' 'Murder Capital'". The violence reached its peak in 1985 with 1,282 military and police deaths and 1,362 civilian deaths.
The Marcos administration's spending had relied heavily on debt since Marcos's first term in the 60s. This left the Philippines vulnerable when high inflation caused the US to raise interest rates from 1980 to 1982, which caused US recessions in 1980 and 1981. The Philippine economy went into decline in 1981. Economic and political instability combined to produce the worst recession in Philippine history in 1984 and 1985, with the economy contracting by 7.3% for two successive years and poverty incidence at 49%.
On August 21, 1983, opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated on the tarmac at Manila International Airport. He had returned to the Philippines after three years in exile in the United States, where he had a heart bypass operation after Marcos allowed him to leave the Philippines to seek medical care. Prior to his heart surgery, Ninoy, along with his two co-accused, NPA leaders Bernabe Buscayno (Commander Dante) and Lt. Victor Corpuz, were sentenced to death by a military commission on charges of murder, illegal possession of firearms and subversion.
A few months before his assassination, Ninoy had decided to return to the Philippines after his research fellowship from Harvard University ended. The opposition blamed Marcos directly for the assassination while others blamed the military and Imelda Marcos. Popular speculation pointed to three suspects; the first was Marcos himself through his military chief Fabian Ver; the second theory pointed to Imelda, who had her own designs now that her ailing husband seemed to be getting weaker, and the third was that Danding Cojuangco planned the assassination to serve his own political ambitions. The 1985 acquittals of Ver as well as other high-ranking military officers charged with the crime were widely seen as a whitewash and a miscarriage of justice.
On November 22, 2007, Pablo Martinez, one of the soldiers convicted in the Aquino assassination, alleged that Marcos crony Danding Cojuangco had ordered the assassination while Marcos was recuperating from his kidney transplant. Cojuangco was the cousin of Aquino's wife Corazon Cojuangco Aquino. Martinez alleged that only he and Galman knew of the assassination, and that Galman was the actual shooter, which is not corroborated by other evidence.
After the February 1986 People Power revolution swept Aquino's widow to the presidency, the Supreme Court ordered a reinvestigation of the assassination. The Sandiganbayan convicted 16 military personnel for the murder, ruling that Constable 1st Class Rogelio Moreno, one of the military escorts assigned to Aquino, "fired the fatal shot" that killed Aquino, not Galman.
In August 1985, 56 Assemblymen signed a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Marcos for alleged diversion of US aid for personal use, citing a July 1985 San Jose Mercury News exposé of the Marcos's multimillion-dollar US investments and property holdings.
The properties included the Crown Building, Lindenmere Estate, residential apartments, a shopping center, mansions (in London, Rome, and Honolulu), the Helen Knudsen Estate, and three condominiums.
The Assembly included in the complaint the misuse and misapplication of funds "for the construction of the Manila Film Center, where X-rated and pornographic films are exhibited, contrary to public morals and Filipino customs and traditions." The impeachment attempt gained little traction, however, even in the light of this incendiary charge; the committee to which the impeachment resolution was referred did not recommend it, and any momentum for removing Marcos under constitutional processes soon died.
During his third term, Marcos's health deteriorated rapidly due to kidney ailments, as a complication of a chronic autoimmune disease lupus erythematosus. He had a kidney transplant in August 1983, and when his body rejected the first kidney transplant, he underwent a second transplant in November 1984. A palace physician who alleged that during one of these periods Marcos had undergone a kidney transplant was shortly afterwards found murdered. Police said he was kidnapped and slain by communist rebels. Many people questioned whether Marcos had capacity to govern, due to his illness and the burgeoning political unrest. With Marcos ailing, Imelda emerged as the government's main public figure.
In late 1985, in the face of escalating public discontent and under pressure from foreign allies, Marcos called a snap election with more than a year left in his term. He selected Arturo Tolentino as his running mate. The opposition to Marcos united behind two American-educated leaders, Aquino's widow, Corazon, and her running mate, Salvador Laurel.
Marcos's World War II medals were first questioned by the foreign press during this campaign. During a campaign in Manila's Tondo district, Marcos retorted:
Marcos was referring to both presidential candidate Corazon Aquino's father-in-law Benigno Aquino Sr. and vice presidential candidate Salvador Laurel's father, former president José P. Laurel.
The elections were held on February 7, 1986. The official election canvasser, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), declared Marcos the winner. The final tally of the COMELEC had Marcos winning with 10,807,197 votes against Aquino's 9,291,761 votes. On the other hand, the partial 69% tally of the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), an accredited poll watcher, had Aquino winning with 7,502,601 votes against Marcos's 6,787,556 votes. Cheating was reported on both sides. This electoral exercise was marred by widespread reports of violence and election tampering.
The fraud culminated in the walkout of 35 COMELEC computer technicians to advance their claim that the official election results were manipulated to favor Ferdinand Marcos, according to their testimonies, which were never validated. The walkout was led by Linda Kapunan and the technicians were protected by Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) officers led by her husband, Lt. Col. Eduardo "Red" Kapunan.
In the last months of Marcos's administration, the Soviet Union stepped up relations and was the only major country to officially congratulate Marcos on his disputed election victory. Marcos had provided favors to the Soviets such as allowing the banned Philippine Communist Party to visit the Soviet Union for consultations. A UPI article from March 1986 reported, "Diplomats in Moscow believe the Soviet government totally misjudged Marcos' power to control events. They speculate that Moscow considered his control of legal bodies and his readiness to be 'ruthless' would thwart any popular opposition."
The election gave a decisive boost to the "People Power movement". Enrile and Ramos later abandoned Marcos, switched sides and sought protection behind the 1986 People Power Revolution, backed by fellow-American educated Eugenio Lopez Jr., Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, and the old political and economic elites. RAM, led by Lt. Col. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan and backed by Enrile had plotted a coup d'état to seize Malacañang and kill Marcos and his family.
At the height of the revolution, Enrile claimed that a purported ambush attempt against him years earlier was in fact faked, in order for Marcos to have a pretext for imposing martial law. Enrile later retracted this statement, and in 2012, he claimed that the ambush was real. Marcos continually maintained that he was the duly elected president for a fourth term, but unfairly and illegally deprived of his right to serve it. On February 25, 1986, rival presidential inaugurations were held, but as Aquino supporters overran parts of Manila and seized state broadcaster PTV-4, Marcos was forced to flee.
At 15:00 PST (GMT+8) on February 25, 1986, Marcos talked to United States Senator Paul Laxalt, a close associate of President Reagan, asking for advice. Laxalt advised him to "cut and cut cleanly", to which Marcos expressed his disappointment. In the afternoon, Marcos talked to Enrile, asking for safe passage for him and his family, including close allies such as General Ver. Finally, at 9:00 p.m., the Marcos family was transported by four Sikorsky HH-3E helicopters to Clark Air Base in Angeles City, about 83 kilometers north of Manila, before boarding US Air Force C-130 planes bound for Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, and finally to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii where Marcos arrived on February 26. He also brought with him 22 crates of cash valued at $717 million, 300 crates of assorted jewelry, $4 million worth of unset precious gems, 65 Seiko and Cartier watches, a 12 by 4 ft box full of pearls, a 3 ft solid gold statue covered in diamonds and other precious stones, $200,000 in gold bullion, nearly $1 million in Philippine pesos, and deposit slips to banks in the United States, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands worth $124 million.
Initially, there was confusion in Washington as to what to do with Marcos and the 90 members of his entourage. Given the special relations Marcos nurtured with Reagan, the former had expectations of favorable treatment. However, Reagan kept his distance. The State Department in turn assigned former Deputy Chief of Mission to Manila, Robert G. Rich Jr. to be the point of contact. The entourage were first billeted inside the housing facilities of Hickam Air Force Base. The State Department announced the Marcoses were not immune from legal charges, and within weeks hundreds of cases had been filed against them.
Throughout his stay in Hawaii, he and his family enjoyed a high life, living in a luxurious house in Makiki Heights, as Imelda entertained guests at parties, while Filipinos back in the Philippines suffered under the debt Marcos incurred.
When protestors stormed Malacañang Palace shortly after their departure, it was notoriously discovered that Imelda had left behind over 2,700 pairs of shoes. The protesters looted and vandalized the palace, many stole documents, jewelry, food, typewriters, etc.
The Catholic hierarchy and Manila's middle class were crucial to the success of the revolution. Contrary to the widely-held notion that the protests were limited to Manila, protests against Marcos also occurred in the provinces and on the islands of Visayas and Mindanao.
More than a year after the revolution, it was revealed to the United States House Foreign Affairs subcommittee in 1987 that Marcos held an intention to return to the Philippines and overthrow the Aquino government. American attorney Richard Hirschfeld and business consultant Robert Chastain, both of whom posed as arms dealers, gained knowledge of a plot by gaining Marcos's trust and secretly recorded their conversations with the ousted leader.
According to Hirschfeld, he was first invited by Marcos to a party held at the latter's family residence in Honolulu. After hearing that one of Hirschfeld's clients was Saudi Sheikh Mohammad Fassi, Marcos's interest was piqued because he had done business with Saudis in the past. A few weeks later, Marcos asked for help with securing a passport from another country, in order to travel to the Philippines while bypassing travel restrictions imposed by the Philippines and United States governments. This failed, however, and subsequently Marcos asked Hirschfeld to arrange a $10-million loan from Fassi.
On January 12, 1987, Marcos stated to Hirschfeld that he required another $5-million loan "in order to pay 10,000 soldiers $500 each as a form of "combat life insurance". When asked by Hirschfeld if he was talking about an invasion of the Philippines, Marcos responded, "Yes". Hirschfeld stated that Marcos said that he was negotiating with several arms dealers to purchase up to $18 million worth of weapons, including tanks and heat-seeking missiles, and enough ammunition to "last an army three months".
Marcos had thought of flying to his hometown in Ilocos Norte and initiating a plot to kidnap Corazon Aquino. "What I would like to see happen is we take her hostage", Marcos told Chastain. "Not to hurt her ... no reason to hurt her ... to take her."
Learning of this plan, Hirschfeld contacted the US Department of Justice, and was asked for further evidence. This information eventually reached President Ronald Reagan, who placed Marcos under "island arrest", further limiting his movement.
Within two weeks of his arrival to the United States, hundreds of criminal and civil cases against the Marcos clique were filed in Hawaii, San Francisco, and New York. Marcos made personal appeals to Reagan to put a stop to these cases. In June 1988 National Security Advisor Colin Powell recommended proceeding with indictments of the Marcoses, as he reviewed the cases as forwarded by United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Rudy Giuliani. Reagan tacitly approved. On August 4, Marcos stated that he had head of state immunity to resist the subpoenas by a federal grand jury to produce his finger and palm prints, and failed to consent to investigators to review his bank accounts. By August 18, a bench warrant of arrest was issued against the Marcoses. By October that year, Reagan personally wrote to Marcos informing him that he believed his innocence of the charges against him, but reminding him that the case was out of his hands. He assured him that they would have every opportunity to prove their innocence.
Giuliani pressed for indicting the Marcoses for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering and allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing. For example, before RICO, a person who instructed someone else to murder could be exempt from prosecution because they did not personally commit the crime. In his next letter to President Reagan on October 20, Marcos complained that Giuliani was giving them nothing but an ultimatum to plead guilty, and even to testify against others, including his own family.
Ferdinand was baptized and raised into the Philippine Independent Church.
Marcos lived with a common-law wife, Carmen Ortega, an Ilocana mestiza who was 1949 Miss Press Photography. They had three children and resided for about two years at 204 Ortega Street in San Juan. In August 1953, their engagement was announced in Manila dailies.
Not much is known about what happened to Ortega and their children. He subsequently converted to Catholicism in later life to marry Imelda Trinidad Romualdez. They married on April 17, 1954, 11 days after they first met. They had three biological children: Imee, Bongbong and Irene Marcos. Marcos's fourth child with Ortega was born after his marriage to Imelda. Marcos and Imelda later adopted a daughter, Aimee.
Marcos had an affair with American actress Dovie Beams from 1968 to 1970. According to reports by the Sydney Morning Herald, Marcos also had an affair with former Playboy model Evelin Hegyesi around 1970 and sired a child with her, Analisa Josefa.
Marcos was admitted to the hospital on January 15, 1989, with pneumonia and underwent a series of operations. In his dying days, Marcos was visited by Vice President Salvador Laurel. During the visit, Marcos offered to return 90% of his ill-gotten wealth to the Filipino people in exchange for burial in the Philippines beside his mother, an offer also disclosed to Enrique Zobel. However, Marcos's offer was rebuffed by the Aquino government and by Imelda.
Marcos died at St. Francis Medical Center in Honolulu at 12:40 a.m (HST) on September 28, 1989, of kidney, heart, and lung ailments, 17 days after his 72nd birthday. Moments after, the younger Ferdinand eulogised his late father by stating, "Hopefully friends and detractors alike will look beyond the man to see what he stood for: his vision, his compassion and his total love of country".
Marcos was interred in a private mausoleum at Byodo-In Temple on the island of Oahu.
The Aquino government refused to allow Marcos's body to be brought back to the Philippines, which ultimately happened four years later.
From 1993 to 2016, Marcos's remains were interred inside a refrigerated, frozen crypt in Batac, Ilocos Norte, where his son, Ferdinand Jr., and eldest daughter, Imee, became the local governor and congressional representative, respectively.
A large bust of Ferdinand Marcos (inspired by Mount Rushmore) was commissioned by the tourism minister, Jose Aspiras, and carved into a hillside in Benguet. It was subsequently destroyed, allegedly by left-wing activists, members of a local tribe who had been displaced by construction of the monument, and looters hunting for the legendary Yamashita treasure.
On November 18, 2016, his remains were reburied at the Libingan ng mga Bayani ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte despite opposition from various groups. On the morning of November 18, using Philippine Armed Forces helicopters, his family and their supporters flew his remains from Ilocos to Manila for a private burial. This account was challenged and the physical location of his remains is disputed. Various groups protested the burial.
Rogelio Roxas, a Filipino treasure hunter, discovered a 3-foot-tall golden Buddha statue in tunnels under the Baguio General Hospital in 1971. Roxas was later arrested and tortured by members of the military, and the statue was taken away. Upon exile of the Marcoses, Roxas assigned his rights to a friend in the United States and formed the Golden Buddha Corporation (GBC) who pursued the case against the former president. In 1996, the lower court awarded US$22 billion in favor of GBC, making this the largest award in a civil case in US history. In November 1998, the Hawaii Supreme Court overturned the ruling, but maintained an award of US$6 million for the illegal arrest and torture experienced by Roxas.
On November 9, 2018, Imelda Marcos was found "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" by the Sandiganbayan of seven counts of graft for private organizations set up in Switzerland during her time as a government official from 1968 to 1986. In less than 20 days however, the Sandiganbayan listed Imelda's "advanced age" and health condition as considerations for allowing the accused to post bail. The Fifth Division's (of the Sandiganbayan) ruling read that "the fact that she is of advanced age and for health reasons, consistent with the doctrine in Enrile vs Sandiganbayan, bail is allowed for these seven cases". The Supreme Court of the Philippines affirmed that the family's assets, beyond their government salaries, are considered as ill-gotten wealth. In 1998 the Court acquitted Imelda Marcos of corruption charges from a previous graft conviction in 1993.
The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed a contempt judgement in relation to the assets of Imelda and her son Bongbong. Although on a different matter, this judgement awarded $353.6 million to human rights victims, which was arguably the largest contempt award ever affirmed by an appellate court.
In 1995, some 10,000 Filipinos won a US class-action lawsuit filed against the Marcos estate. The claims were filed by victims or their surviving relatives consequent on torture, execution, and disappearances.
The Swiss government, initially reluctant to respond to allegations that stolen funds were held in Swiss accounts, returned $684 million of Marcos' holdings.
Corazon Aquino repealed many of the repressive laws enacted during Marcos's dictatorship. She restored the right of habeas corpus, repealed anti-labor laws and freed hundreds of political prisoners.
From 1989 to 1996, a series of suits were brought before US courts against Marcos and his daughter Imee, alleging that they bore responsibility for executions, torture, and disappearances. A jury in the Ninth Circuit Court awarded US$2 billion to the plaintiffs and to a class composed of human rights victims and their families. On June 12, 2008, in Republic of Philippines v. Pimentel the US Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that, "The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded with instructions to order the District Court to dismiss the interpleader action." The court dismissed the interpleader lawsuit filed to determine the rights of 9,500 Filipino human rights victims (1972–1986) to recover US$35 million, part of a US$2 billion judgment in US courts against the Marcos estate, because the Philippines government is an indispensable party, protected by sovereign immunity. The Philippines government claimed ownership of the funds transferred by Marcos in 1972 to Arelma S.A., which invested the money with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., in New York. In July 2017, the Philippine Court of Appeals rejected the petition seeking to enforce the United States court decision.
In 2013, Philippine Congress passed Republic Act 10368 or the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013. The law created the Human Rights Violations Claims Board and provided reparations to victims of summary execution, torture, enforced disappearances, and other human rights violations. Compensation came from P10 billion of stolen wealth seized by the government from the Marcoses. A total of 11,103 victims received compensation in 2018. A bill filed in Congress in 2020 proposed to compensate tens of thousands of people still not officially recognized as victims of state-sponsored violence.
Marcos left an legacy of debt, hardship, and repression.
The Marcos regime committed human rights abuses against a long list of opponents. These included student activists such as Edgar Jopson and Rigoberto Tiglao, farmers such as Bernabe Buscayno, journalists such as Satur Ocampo, legal political opponents such as Ninoy Aquino, fellow candidates such as Alex Boncayao, and priests and nuns. Victims were commonly accused of supporting communist rebels or other leftists, or of joining or sympathizing with the CPP, NPA, or MNLF. Victims were rounded up without an arrest warrant and indefinitely detained without charge. In a keynote speech at the University of the East, journalist Raissa Robles described how anyone could be arrested (or abducted) with ease through Arr est Search and Seizure Orders (ASSO), which allowed the military or police to detain anyon,e according to Rappler research.
A 1976 Amnesty International report listed 88 government torturers, including members of the Philippine Constabulary and the Philippine Army, which was under the direct control of Major General Ramos and Defense Minister Enrile. According to Rigoberto Tiglao, nearly all of the human rights abuses were committed by Philippine Constabulary units, especially through its national network of "Constabulary Security Units", whose heads reported directly to Ramos. The most dreaded of these was the Manila-based 5th Constabulary Security Unit (CSU), which featured dreaded torturer Lt. Rodolfo Aguinaldo, which was credited with capturing most of the Communist Party leaders including Sison and the Manila-Rizal Regional Committee he headed; the Metrocom Intelligence and Security Group (MISG) under the command of Col. Rolando Abadilla; and the Intelligence Service (ISAFP).
The various estimates of the scale of abuses include:
Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP)
Amnesty International
Historian Alfred McCoy gives a figure of 3,257 recorded extrajudicial killings by the military from 1975 to 1985, 35,000 tortured and 70,000 incarcerated.
Bulatlat newspaper
Human rights group Karapatan
Susan Quimpo, co-author of Subversive Lives
In addition to these, up to 10,000 Moro Muslims were killed in massacres by the Philippine Army, Philippine Constabulary, and the Ilaga pro-government paramilitary group.
Victims were often taken to military "safehouses" where abductees were tortured, often blindfolded. In a document titled "Open Letter to the Filipino People", martial law martyr Edgar "Edjop" Jopson described them: "Safehouses usually have their windows always shut tight. They are usually covered with high walls. One would usually detect [safehouses] through the traffic of motorcycles and cars, going in and out of the house at irregular hours. Burly men, armed with pistols tucked in their waists or in clutch bags, usually drive these vehicles."
Various forms of torture were used by the military, typically in combination.
Summary executions were common. Bodies were often recovered bearing signs of torture and mutilation. Such cases were referred to as "salvaging" a term widely believed to be derived from the Spanish word salvaje, meaning savage. Mutilated remains were often dumped on roadsides in order to instill fear and to intimidate opponents.
Anyone could be "salvaged": communists, suspects, innocent civilians and priests included. TFDP documented 1,473 "salvage" cases from 1980 to 1984 alone.
Victims included Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila student Liliosa Hilao, Archimedes Trajano, Juan Escandor, and 16-year-old Luis Manuel "Boyet" Mijares, whose body was found with burn marks, all his nails removed, 33 ice pick wounds, skull crushed, eyeballs gouged out, and genitals mutilated before he was dropped from a helicopter.
Enforced disappearances, also known as "desaparecidos" or "the disappeared" – people who suddenly went missing, sometimes without a trace and whose bodies were never recovered.
Victims include Primitivo "Tibo" Mijares, Emmanuel Alvarez, Albert Enriquez, Ma. Leticia Ladlad, Hermon Lagman, Mariano Lopez, Rodelo Manaog, Manuel Ontong, Florencio Pesquesa, Arnulfo Resus, Rosaleo Romano, Carlos Tayag, Emmanuel Yap, Jan Quimpo, Rizalina Ilagan, Christina Catalla, Jessica Sales and Ramon Jasul.
While the numbers of political detainees went down, the number of people killed rose and spiked in 1981, the year martial law was officially lifted by Marcos according to Task Force Detainees of the Philippines. According to Senator Jose W. Diokno, "As torture (cases) declined, a more terrible tactic emerged; unofficial executions" – suspected dissidents were simply arrested and vanished.
Murder victims include:
It is hard to judge the full extent of massacres and atrocities that happened during the Marcos regime due to heavy press censorship at the time. Civilian massacres include the following:
Thousands of Moros were killed during the Marcos regime. They formed insurgent groups and separatist movements such as the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which became more radical with time. The Marcos regime killed hundreds of Moros before imposing martial law. The number of Moro victims killed by the Army, Philippine Constabulary, and the Ilaga (a government-sanctioned terrorist cult notorious for cannibalism and land grabbing that served as members of the CHDF) reached as high as 10,000 lives.
Marcos family members deny any human rights violations.
Bongbong Marcos describes stories of human rights abuses as "self-serving statements by politicians, self-aggrandizement narratives, pompous declarations, and political posturing and propaganda."
Imee called allegations political accusations. According to her, "If what is demanded is an admission of guilt, I don't think that's possible. Why would we admit to something we did not do?"
In 2012, the Philippine Supreme Court ruled all Marcos assets beyond legally declared earnings/salary to be ill-gotten wealth and such wealth to have been forfeited to the government or human rights victims.
According to the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCOG), the Marcos family and their cronies looted so much wealth from the Philippines that investigators have not determined precisely how many billions were stolen. PCOG estimated that Marcos stole around $5 billion to $10 billion, while earning an annual salary equivalent to US$13,500.
Among the sources of the Marcos wealth are alleged to be diverted foreign aid, military aid (including to Marcos for sending Filipino troops to Vietnam) and kickbacks from public works contracts.
In 1990, Imelda Marcos was acquitted of charges that she raided the Philippine's treasury by a US jury. She was acquitted because the jury deemed that US did not have jurisdiction. In 1993, she was convicted of graft in Manila for entering into three unfavourable lease contracts between a government-run transportation agency and another government-run hospital. In 1998, the Philippine Supreme Court overturned her conviction. In 2008, Philippine trial court judge Silvino Pampilo acquitted Imelda of 32 counts of illegal money transfer from the 1993 graft conviction. In 2010, she was ordered to repay the Philippine government almost $280,000 for funds taken in 1983. In 2012, a US Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit upheld a contempt judgement against Imelda and Bongbong for violating an injunction barring them from dissipating their assets, and awarded $353.6 million to human rights victims. As of October 2015, she faced 10 graft charges, and 25 civil cases, down from 900 in the 1990s, as most cases were dismissed for lack of evidence.
In the 2004 Global Corruption Report, Marcos appeared in the list of the world's most corrupt leaders, behind Suharto. One of Marcos's former Ministers of industry, Vicente Paterno, noted that while the amount stolen by Marcos's regime probably fell short of Suharto, Marcos invested outside the Philippines, whereas Suharto mostly invested at home.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' (ICIJ) exposé of offshore leaks accused Imee of hiding wealth in tax havens in the British Virgin Islands.
In 2014, Imelda's former secretary Vilma Bautista was sentenced to prison for conspiring to sell a Monet, Sisley, and other masterpieces.
On May 9, 2016, ICIJ released the Panama Papers. Imee and Irene were named, along grandsons Fernando Manotoc, Matthew Joseph Manotoc, and Ferdinand Richard Manotoc, his son-in-law Gregorio Maria Araneta III, including his son-in-law Tommy Manotoc's relatives Ricardo Gabriel Manotoc and Teodoro Kalaw Manotoc.
On September 3, 2017, then President Rodrigo Duterte said the Marcos family was ready to transfer their wealth to the government. In January 2018, a draft House Bill proposing a settlement and immunity for the Marcoses was received by the Duterte government in July 2017.
Marcos projected himself to the public as building vast construction projects, and his record upholds that reputation. A 2011 study Marcos was the president who spent the most on infrastructure in terms of annual spending. Most of these projects were paid with foreign currency loans at great cost to taxpayers.
Projects included hospitals such as the Philippine Heart Center, Lung Center, and Kidney Center, transportation infrastructure like San Juanico Bridge (formerly Marcos Bridge), Pan-Philippine Highway, North Luzon Expressway, South Luzon Expressway, and Manila Light Rail Transit (LRT). Cultural and heritage sites included the Cultural Center of the Philippines], Nayong Pilipino, Philippine International Convention Center and the ill-fated Manila Film Center were built as well.
This focus on infrastructure eventually earned the label "edifice complex".
Marcos' spending on construction has been claimed to be intended to position Imelda Marcos as a patron of the arts. This effort was so large that by 1977–1980, projects in the "conspicuous capital outlays" category had ballooned from a negligible amount to 20% of the Philippines' capital outlays.
These projects were typically constructed on a rush basis, often compromising structural safety.
The most controversial projects included
Marcos's signature agricultural program, Masagana 99, launched on May 21, 1973, to address a rice shortage. Its goal was to raise yield from 40 to 99 cavans (4.4 tons) per hectare. The program pushed farmers to use high-yield seeds, fertilizer, and herbicides. Initial success came from encouraging farmers to plant "Miracle Rice" (IR8), which funded by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, and the UP College of Agriculture through IRRI, which had been under development since 1962. This increased rice production from 3.7 to 7.7 million tons in two decades and made the Philippines a rice exporter for the first time in the 20th century. The required switch to IR8 required more fertilizers and pesticides, helping multinationals, but not small, peasant farmers who often remained in poverty.
Although Masagana 99 showed promising results, the years from 1965 to 1986 showed a complete paradox of events. The income per capita rose, the economy was growing, yet people were impoverished. The American economist James K. Boyce calls this phenomenon "immiserizing growth", when economic growth, and political and social conditions, are such that the rich get absolutely richer and the poor become absolutely poorer. The World Bank reported that crops (rice, corn, coconut, sugar), livestock and poultry and fisheries grew at an average rate of 6.8%, 3% and 4.5%, respectively from 1970 to 1980, and while the forestry sector declined by an annual average rate of 4.4% through the 1970s.
The Marcos administration marked a period of intense logging, with commercial logging accounting for 5% of GDP product in the first half of the 1970s. This was the result of Japanese construction demand. Timber products became a top export, but little attention was paid to deforestation's environmental impacts.
In the early 1980s, forestry collapsed because most accessible forests had been depleted – of 12 million hectares of forestland, about 7 million had been harvested. The rate of forest destruction was about 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) per year during the 1960s and 1970s, such that by 1981, the Food and Agriculture Organization classified 2 million hectares of Philippine forests "severely degraded and incapable of regeneration".
In 1979, Marcos added 11 heavy industrialization projects to the economic agenda. The priority projects were:
Other industrialization projects during the Marcos administration included 17 hydroelectric and geothermal power plants. The commissioning of the Tongonan 1 and Palinpinon 1 geothermal plants in 1983 made the Philippines the world's second largest geothermal producers.
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) is one of Marcos' six planned nuclear power plants. It stands in Morong, Bataan, atop Napot Point that overlooks the South China Sea. Construction completed in 1985.
In 1974, National Power was negotiating with General Electric. However, Westinghouse energy company, hired Herminio Disini, a friend of Ferdinand Marcos to lobby for them. Westinghouse made a direct offer to supply a plant with two 620 MW reactors at a price of $500 million. The price estimate was raised to around $650 million because of such as fuel and transmission lines. Westinghouse won the deal. By March 1975, the price increased to $1.1 billion.
Numerous issues regarding safety and usability emerged. After the Three Mile Island incident, construction stopped. A safety inquiry revealed over 4,000 defects. The site was near the open sea and the then-dormant Mount Pinatubo, and was within 25 miles of three geological faults. The project was discontinued in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster.
Costs passed $2.3 million; loans were paid off only in April 2017, although maintaining the plant costs P40 million a year.
Marcos emphasized educational infrastructure during his first presidential term. He was more willing than previous presidents to use foreign loans to fund construction projects allowing him to construct more roads and schoolbuildings than any previous administration.
47 colleges and universities were established during Marcos's 21-year administration.
The Philippine education system underwent two major periods of restructuring under Marcos: first in 1972 with Bagong Lipunan (New Society) and again in 1981 when the Fourth Philippine Republic was established.
Bagong Lipunan marked the first major restructuring of Philippine education since Americans arrived around 1900. It reoriented the teaching of civics and history so that it would reflect Bagong Lipunan's ideology of constitutional authoritarianism. In addition, it attempted to synchronize the curriculum with the administration's economic strategy of labor export.
The second restructuring in 1981 failed as the administration was distracted by economic crises.
In 1975, Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 824, placing the four cities and thirteen municipalities near the Province of Manila under the administration of the Metro Manila Commission (MMC).
The appointed head of the MMC was called a "governor". Marcos appointed Imelda as governor in 1976.
The governorship was the republic's second most powerful office. Metro Manila then accounted for around 20% of the country's population and at least 70% of GDP. Its budget is second to the national government. This increase in Imelda's political power led Carlos P. Romulo to describe her as the Philippines' "de facto vice president".
All five American presidents from 1965 to 1985 maintained the US–Marcos relationship, mainly to protect and retain access of the US military bases. However, the Philippines was just one of many US allies, while the US was the Philippines' only patron. Marcos worked to maintain close relations with the US. He relied on this connection to sustain his regime.
Marcos strengthened his ties to the US government by actions such as sending two engineer battalions to the US in the Vietnam War. After South Vietnam fell, President Ford sought better security assistance from allies, such as the Philippines, while President Carter wanted to retain US military bases in the Philippines to guard the West's oil supply line from the Middle East.
To obtain additional aid, Marcos often leveraged threats that caught US attention. To secure aid for his campaign, Marcos threatened to search every visiting American naval vessel. The US responded by assisting his campaign indirectly, injecting millions into the government banking system.
In another instance, when US military bases became an issue in the Philippines in1969, Marcos secretly assured the US he had no desire for an American withdrawal. He had received warnings from the Philippine embassy that US aid was at risk in the Congress. Marcos returned to implied threats. In one speech, he stated that the bases were a threat to regional peace and security, while reminding the US of its "solemn obligation" to continue aid. In the last weeks of the Ford administration, Marcos rejected the US offer of $1 billion in mixed grants and loans as too small.
Marcos published various books during his term from 1970 to 1983, and a final offering was published posthumously, in 1990. Apparently these books were written by ghostwriters, notably Adrian Cristobal.