Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos, Sr. was a Filipino lawyer, politician, World War II veteran and kleptocrat who was President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled as a dictator under martial law from 1972 until 1981.
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was born on September 11, 1917, in the town of Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, to Mariano Marcos and Josefa Edralin. He was later baptized into the Philippine Independent Church, but was first baptized in the Roman Catholic Church at the age of three.
In December 1938, Ferdinand Marcos was prosecuted for the murder of Julio Nalundasan. He was not the only accused from the Marcos clan; also accused was his father, Mariano, his brother, Pio, and his brother-in-law Quirino Lizardo. Nalundasan, one of the elder Marcos' political rivals, had been shot and killed in his house in Batac on September 21, 1935 -- the day after he had defeated Mariano Marcos a second time for a seat in the National Assembly. According to two witnesses, the four had conspired to assassinate Nalundasan, with Ferdinand Marcos eventually pulling the trigger. In late January 1939, they were finally denied bail and later in the year, they were convicted. Ferdinand and Lizardo received the death penalty for premeditated murder, while Mariano and Pio were found guilty of contempt of court. The Marcos family took their appeal to the Supreme Court of the Philippines, which overturned the lower court's decision on October 22, 1940, acquitting them of all charges except contempt.
Marcos studied law at the University of the Philippines, attending the prestigious College of Law. He excelled in both curricular and extra-curricular activities, becoming a valuable member of the university's swimming, boxing, and wrestling teams. He was also an accomplished and prolific orator, debater, and writer for the student newspaper. He graduated cum laude despite the fact that he was incarcerated while reviewing. Had he not been in jail for 27 days, he would have graduated magna cum laude.
The subject of Marcos' military career has been the subject of debate and controversy. Before World War II, Marcos was already a Reserve Officers' Training Corps graduate during his time studying law. Marcos was one of those who were called into the army as a 3rd lieutenant during the mobilization in the summer and fall of 1941. The U.S. Army has confirmed that Ferdinand Marcos fought on the U.S. side after the December 1941 Japanese invasion of the Philippines until April 1942, before being taken prisoner. He also had records showing that he fought on the American side again from December 1944 until the end of the war. Later research showed the wartime exploits of Marcos to be mostly propaganda, being inaccurate or untrue.
When the Philippines was granted independence on July 4, 1946 by the American government, the Philippine Congress was established. Marcos ran and was three times elected as representative of the 2nd district of Ilocos Norte, 1949–1959. After he served as member of the House of Representatives for three terms, Marcos won his senate seat in the elections in 1959 and became the Senate minority floor leader in 1960. He became the executive vice president of the Liberal Party in and served as the party president from 1961 to 1964. From 1963 to 1965, he became the Senate President. Thus far, he is the last Senate President to become President of the Philippines. He introduced a number of significant bills, many of which found their way into the Republic statute books.
While serving in Congress, he wed singer and beauty queen Imelda Romualdez in 1954 after an 11-day courtship, with the couple going on to have three children: Maria Imelda "Imee" Marcos (born 12 November 1955), Governor of Ilocos Norte, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (born 13 September 1957), Senator of the Philippines, and Irene Marcos (born 16 September 1960). His fourth child, Aimee Romualdez Marcos, was adopted and was a musician in 2012.
Marcos won the presidency in 1965. In 1969, Marcos was reelected for a second term -- the first and the last Filipino president to win a second full term.
At the height of armed communist insurgency in the Philippines, 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 1970.
Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972 when his Press Secretary, Francisco Tatad, announced on Radio that Proclamation No 1081, which Marcos had signed 2 days earlier on September 21, 1972, had come into force and would extend Marcos' rule beyond the constitutional two-term limit. He justified this by highlighting the threats of Communist and Muslim insurgencies. Ruling by decree, he curtailed press freedom and other civil liberties, closed down Congress and media establishments, and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders and militant activists, including senators Benigno Aquino Jr., Jovito Salonga and Jose Diokno. However, unlike Ninoy Aquino's senator 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. Marcos claimed that martial law was the prelude to creating his Bagong Lipunan, a "New Society" based on new social and political values.
A constitutional convention, which had been called for in 1970 to replace the Commonwealth era 1935 Constitution, continued the work of framing a new constitution after the declaration of martial law. The new constitution went into effect in early 1973, changing the form of government from presidential to parliamentary and allowing Marcos to stay in power beyond 1973. The constitution was approved by 95% of the voters in the Philippine constitutional plebiscite. After putting in force amendments to the constitution, legislative action, and securing his sweeping powers and with the Batasan, his supposed successor body to the Congress, under his control, President Marcos lifted martial law on January 17, 1981. However, the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus continued in the autonomous regions of Western Mindanao and Central Mindanao. The opposition dubbed the lifting of martial law as a mere "face lifting" as a precondition to the visit of Pope John Paul II.
On June 16, 1981, six months after the lifting of martial law, the first presidential election in twelve years was held. President Marcos ran and won a massive victory over the other candidates. The major opposition parties, the United Nationalists Democratic Organizations (UNIDO), a coalition of opposition parties and LABAN, boycotted the elections.
On August 21, 1983, opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated on the tarmac at Manila International Airport. The opposition blamed Marcos directly for the assassination while others blamed the military and his wife, Imelda. Popular speculations pointed to three suspects; first was Marcos himself through his trusted military chief Fabian Ver; the second theory pointed to his wife Imelda who had her own burning ambition now that her ailing husband seemed to be getting weaker, and the third was that Danding Cojuangco planned the assassination because of his own political ambitions. The 1985 acquittals of Chief of Staff General Fabian Ver as well as other high-ranking military officers charged with the crime were widely seen as a whitewash and miscarriage of justice. On November 22, 2007, Pablo Martinez, one of the convicted suspects in the assassination of Ninoy Aquino Jr. alleges that it was Ninoy Aquino Jr.'s relative, Danding Cojuangco, cousin of his wife Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, who ordered the assassination of Ninoy Aquino Jr. while Marcos was recuperating from his kidney transplant. Martinez also alleges only he and Galman knew of the assassination, and that Galman was the actual shooter, which is not collaborated by other evidence of the case.
In August 1985, 56 Assemblymen signed a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Marcos for alleged diversion of U.S. aid for personal use, citing a July 1985 San Jose Mercury News exposé of the Marcos' multimillion-dollar investment and property holdings in the United States. The properties allegedly amassed by the First Family were the Crown Building, Lindenmere Estate, and a number of residential apartments (in New Jersey and New York), a shopping center in New York, mansions (in London, Rome and Honolulu), the Helen Knudsen Estate in Hawaii and three condominiums in San Francisco, California.
During his third term, Marcos' 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 had a second transplant in November 1984. Many people questioned whether he still had capacity to govern, due to his grave illness and the ballooning political unrest. With Marcos ailing, his powerful wife, Imelda, emerged as the government's main public figure. Marcos dismissed speculations of his ailing health as he used to be an avid golfer and fitness buff who liked showing off his physique.
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. 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' 6,787,556 points. Cheating was reported on both sides. This electoral exercise was marred by widespread reports of violence and tampering of election results. The alleged fraud culminated in the walkout of 35 COMELEC computer technicians to protest the manipulation of the official election results to favor Ferdinand Marcos.
The failed election process gave a decisive boost to the "People Power movement." Enrile and Ramos would later abandon Marcos' 'sinking ship' and seek 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. At the height of the revolution, Juan Ponce Enrile revealed that a purported and well-publicized ambush attempt against him years earlier was in fact faked, in order for Marcos to have a pretext for imposing martial law. However, Marcos never ceased to maintain that he was the duly elected and proclaimed president of the Philippines 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. When protestors stormed Malacañang Palace shortly after Marcos' departure, it was famously discovered that Imelda had left behind over 2,700 pairs of shoes in her closet.
In his dying days, Marcos was visited by Vice President Salvador Laurel. During the meeting with Salvador Laurel, Marcos offered 90% of his possessions back to the Filipino people in exchange for being buried back in the Philippines beside his mother, an offer also disclosed to Enrique Zobel. However, Marcos' offer was rebuffed by the Aquino government. Marcos died in Honolulu on the morning of September 28, 1989, of kidney, heart, and lung ailments. Marcos was interred in a private mausoleum at Byodo-In Temple on the island of Oahu where his remains were visited daily by the Marcos family, political allies and friends.
The Aquino government refused to allow Marcos' body to be brought back to the Philippines. The body was only brought back to the Philippines only after 4 years after Marcos' death during the term of President Fidel Ramos. From 1993 to 2016, his remains were interred inside a refrigerated crypt in Ilocos Norte, where his son, Ferdinand Jr., and eldest daughter, Imee have since become the local governor and congressional representative, respectively. Opinion on his burial remains split: 50 percent of the 1,800 respondents of a survey conducted by SWS in February 2016 said Marcos "was worthy to be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani" while the other half rejected a hero's burial. On November 18, 2016, the remains of Marcos was buried at the Heroes' Cemetery despite opposition from various groups. The burial came as unexpected to many, as the Supreme Court's ruling still allowed 15 days for the opposition to file a motion for reconsideration. On the morning of November 18, using Philippine Armed Forces choppers, his family and their supporters flew his remains from Ilocos to Manila for a private burial.
Marcos' government built a large number of infrastructure projects, including hospitals like the Philippine Heart Center, Lung Center, and Kidney Center, transportation infrastructure like San Juanico Bridge, Pan-Philippine Highway, North Luzon Expressway, South Luzon Expressway, and Manila Light Rail Transit (LRT), and 17 hydroelectric and geothermal power plants to lessen the country's dependency on oil. By 1983, the Philippines became the second largest producer of geothermal power in the world with the commissioning of the Tongonan 1 and Palinpinon 1 geothermal plants.
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