Ferdinand Marcos facts for kids

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In this Philippine name, the middle name or maternal family name is Edralin and the surname or paternal family name is Marcos.

Quick facts for kids His Excellency Ferdinand Marcos CCLH KGCR DUT CYC KRM
Marcos in 1982

10th President of the Philippines
In office December 30, 1965 – February 25, 1986
Prime Minister	Himself (1978–1981) Cesar Virata (1981–1986)
Vice President	Fernando Lopez (1965–1972) Vacant (1972–1986) Arturo Tolentino (de facto; 1986)
Preceded by	Diosdado Macapagal
Succeeded by	Corazon C. Aquino
3rd Prime Minister of the Philippines
In office June 12, 1978 – June 30, 1981
Preceded by	Office established (Position previously held by Jorge B. Vargas as Ministries involved)
Succeeded by	Cesar Virata
Secretary of National Defense (in concurrent capacity as President of the Philippines)
In office August 28, 1971 – January 3, 1972
President	Himself
Preceded by	Juan Ponce Enrile
Succeeded by	Juan Ponce Enrile
In office December 31, 1965 – January 20, 1967
President	Himself
Preceded by	Macario Peralta
Succeeded by	Ernesto Mata
9th President of the Senate of the Philippines
In office April 5, 1963 – December 30, 1965
Preceded by	Eulogio Rodriguez
Succeeded by	Arturo Tolentino
Senator of the Philippines
In office December 30, 1959 – December 30, 1965
Member of the Philippine House of Representatives from Ilocos Norte's 2nd district
In office December 30, 1949 – December 30, 1959
Preceded by	Pedro Albano
Succeeded by	Simeon M. Valdez

Personal details
Born	Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (1917-09-11)September 11, 1917 Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, Philippine Islands
Died	September 28, 1989(1989-09-28) (aged 72) Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
Resting place	Ferdinand E. Marcos Presidential Center, Batac, Ilocos Norte, Philippines (1993–2016) Libingan ng mga Bayani, Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines (since November 18, 2016)
Political party	Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (1978–1989)
Other political affiliations	Liberal (1946–1965) Nacionalista (1965–1972)
Spouses	Carmen Ortega (common-law) (before 1954) Imelda Romualdez (m. 1954)
Children	4 with Carmen Ortega 4 with Imelda Marcos: Imee Bongbong Irene Aimee 1 with Evelin Hegyesi: Analisa Hegyesi Corr
Parents	Mariano Marcos (father) Josefa Edralin (mother)
Alma mater	University of the Philippines (LL.B.)
Profession	Lawyer jurist politician
Signature
Nicknames	Macoy, Ferdie
Military service
Allegiance	Philippines United States
Years of service	1942–1945
Rank	First lieutenant Major
Unit	21st Infantry Division (USAFFE) 14th Infantry Regiment (USAFIP-NL)
Battles/wars	World War II

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (UK: /ˈmɑːrkɒs/ MAR-koss, US: /-koʊs, -kɔːs/ --kohss-,_--kawss, Tagalog: [ˈmaɾkɔs]; September 11, 1917–September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial law from 1972 until 1981 and kept most of his martial law powers until he was deposed in 1986, branding his rule as "constitutional authoritarianism" under his Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (New Society Movement). One of the most controversial leaders of the 20th century, Marcos's rule was infamous for its corruption, extravagance, and brutality.

Personal life

Ferdinand Marcos (right) with his family in the 1920s

Main page: Marcos family

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 for being a Japanese propagandist and collaborator during World War II. Josefa Marcos was a schoolteacher who would far outlive her husband – dying in 1988, two years after the Marcos family left her in Malacañang Palace when they fled into exile after the 1986 People Power Revolution, and only one year before her son Ferdinand's death.

Ferdinand was first baptized and raised into the Philippine Independent Church. He subsequently converted to Catholicism to marry Imelda Trinidad Romualdez.

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 after, but Marcos married Imelda Trinidad Romualdez on April 17, 1954, only 11 days after they first met. They had three biological children: Ferdinand, Imee, 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 claimed that he was a descendant of Antonio Luna, a Filipino general during the Philippine–American War, a claim which has since been 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, just like many other presidents.

Education

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, becoming a member of the university's swimming, boxing, and wrestling teams. He was also an accomplished orator, debater, and writer for the student newspaper. While attending the UP College of Law, he became a member of the Upsilon Sigma Phi, where he met his future colleagues in government and some of his staunchest critics.

When he sat for the 1939 Bar Examinations, he was a bar topnotcher (top scorer) with a score of 92.35%. He graduated cum laude. 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.

Ferdinand Marcos being conferred with a Doctor Laws, honoris causa degree during the investiture of the first Filipino president of Central Philippine University, Rex. D. Drilon, on April 21, 1967.

Ferdinand Marcos received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) (honoris causa) degree in 1967 from Central Philippine University.

Army and political career

Marcos, who had received ROTC training, was activated for service in the US Armed Forces in the Philippines (USAFIP) after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He served as a 3rd lieutenant during the mobilization in the summer and fall of 1941, continuing until April 1942, after which he was taken prisoner. According to Marcos's account, he was released from prison by the Japanese on August 4, 1942, and US military records show that he rejoined USAFIP forces in December 1944. Marcos's military service then formally ended with his discharge as a major in the 14th Infantry, US Armed Forces, in the Philippines Northern Luzon, in May 1945. Marcos gained political success by claiming to have been the "most decorated war hero in the Philippines", but many of his claims have been found to be false, with United States Army documents describing his wartime claims as "fraudulent" and "absurd".

After World War II, he became a lawyer then served in the Philippine House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the Philippine Senate from 1959 to 1965. 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 was 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.

Presidency

First term (1965–1969)

Main page: First term of the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos

Marcos was elected the President of the Philippines in 1965. By pursuing an aggressive program of infrastructure development, Marcos began taking up massive foreign loans to fund the "rice, roads, and school buildings" he promised in his reelection campaign. With tax revenues unable to fund his administration's 70% increase in infrastructure spending from 1966 to 1970, Marcos began tapping foreign loans, creating a budget deficit 72% higher than the Philippine government's annual deficit from 1961 to 1965. This resulted in economic instability still being felt today. Among the major projects of the first term was the construction of the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex, considered one of the earliest examples of what would come to be known as the Marcoses' edifice complex.

Soon after being elected, Marcos developed close relations with the officers of the Philippine military, and began expanding the armed forces. In an unprecedented move, Marcos chose to concurrently serve as his own defense secretary, allowing him to have a direct hand in running the military. He also significantly increased the budget of the armed forces, tapping them in civil projects such as the construction of schools. Generals loyal to Marcos were allowed to stay in their positions past their retirement age, or were rewarded with civilian government posts, leading Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. to accuse Marcos in 1968 of trying to establish "a garrison state". He also gained the support of the Johnson administration in the US by allowing the limited Philippine involvement in the Vietnam war through the Philippine Civic Action Group (PHILCAG). PHILCAG reached a strength of some 1,600 troops in 1968 and between 1966 and 1970 over 10,000 Filipino soldiers served in South Vietnam, mainly being involved in civilian infrastructure projects.

From the 1960s, Ferdinand Marcos would engage in unofficial diplomacy with the Soviet Bloc, in ways that were shaped by the Sino-Soviet split. The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930, an officially illegal organization, had endorsed Marcos in 1965. The formation of the China-aligned Communist Party of the Philippines led to government support of the Soviet-aligned Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930. Some members of the PKP-1930 were appointed to positions within Marcos's government as salaried "researchers". Their transnational connections were used as another channel of negotiation with the Soviet Union on geopolitical and economic lines.

Marcos's first term also saw the Philippine Senate's expose of the Jabidah massacre in March 1968, where a Muslim man named Jibin Arula testified that he had been the lone survivor of a group of Moro army recruits which had been executed en-masse on Corregidor island on March 18, 1968. The allegations in the expose led to the formation of the Mindanao Independence Movement in 1968, the Bangsamoro Liberation Organization (BMLO) in 1969, and the consolidation of these various forces into the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in October 1972.

Second term (1969–1972)

Main page: Second term of the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos

Ferdinand Marcos takes the Oath of Office for a second term before Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion on December 30, 1969.

Presidential elections were held on November 11, 1969, and Marcos was reelected for a second term. He was the first and last 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 1969 Philippine balance of payments crisis, which was already underway during the second inauguration. Opposition groups began to form, with "moderate" groups calling for political reform and "radical" groups who espoused a more radical-left ideology. Marcos responded to both groups with military force. The most notable of these was the series of protests during the first three months of 1970 – a period that has since come to be known as the First Quarter Storm.

Another major event during Marcos's second term was the Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1971, which was marred in May 1972 when a delegate exposed a bribery scheme in which delegates were paid to vote in favor of the Marcoses – with First Lady Imelda Marcos herself implicated in the alleged payola scheme.

Marcos's second term effectively ended a little under two years and nine months later, when Marcos announced on September 23, 1972, that he had placed the Philippines under martial law. The Constitution was revised, media outlets were silenced, and violence and oppression were used against the political opposition, Muslims, suspected communists, and ordinary citizens.

Martial law era (1972–1981)

Main page: Martial law under Ferdinand Marcos

September 24, 1972, issue of the Sunday edition of the Philippine Daily Express

Marcos's declaration of martial law became known to the public on September 23, 1972, when his press secretary, Francisco Tatad, announced through the radio that Proclamation № 1081, which Marcos had supposedly signed two days earlier on September 21, had come into force and would extend Marcos's rule beyond the constitutional two-term limit. Ruling by decree, he almost dissolved press freedom and other civil liberties to add propaganda machine, 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 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.

Imperial Japanese Army soldier Hiroo Onoda offering his military sword to Marcos on the day of his surrender on March 11, 1974

As one of his rationalizations for the declaration of martial law, Marcos said that there was a need to "reform society" by placing it under the control of a "benevolent dictator" which could guide the undisciplined populace through a period of chaos. He referred to this social engineering exercise as the bagong lipunan or "new society" and the Marcos administration produced a range propaganda materials – including speeches, books, lectures, slogans, and numerous propaganda songs – to promote it.

According to Marcos's book Notes on the New Society, it was a movement urging 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 the 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 the PKP-1930 entered into a "national unity agreement" by which the PKP-1930 would support New Society programs such as land reform, trade union reform, and including revitalized relations with the Soviet Bloc.

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 any educational institution to be established exclusively for foreigners or offer any curriculum exclusively for foreigners, and restricted the teaching of the Chinese language to not more than 100 minutes a day.

Martial law was put on vote in July 1973 in the 1973 Philippine martial law referendum and was marred with controversy resulting to 90.77% voting yes and 9.23% voting no.

Along with Marcos, members of his Rolex 12 circle like Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, Chief of Staff 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 from 1972 to 1981, and the three remained President Marcos's closest advisers until he was ousted in 1986. Other 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 the fall of South Vietnam to the communists and the growing tide of communism in South East Asia. Military officers were placed on the boards of a variety of media corporations, public utilities, development projects, and other private corporations, most of whom were highly educated and well-trained graduates of the Philippine Military Academy. At the same time, Marcos made efforts to foster the growth of a domestic weapons-manufacturing industry and heavily increased military spending.

Many human rights abuses were attributed to the Philippine Constabulary which was then headed by future president Fidel Ramos. The Civilian Home Defense Force, a precursor of Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU), was organized by President Marcos to battle with the communist and Islamic insurgency problem, has particularly been accused of notoriously inflicting human right violations on leftists, the NPA, Muslim insurgents, and rebels against the Marcos government.

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 the authority of Marcos to help 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 the Marcos regime, and about $5.5 billion through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank.

Prior to the Marcos administration, the Philippine government had maintained a close relationship with the Kuomintang-ruled Republic of China (ROC) government which had fled to the island of Taiwan, despite the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution. 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 in the country.

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 June 1975, President Marcos went to the PRC and signed a Joint Communiqué normalizing relations between the Philippines and China. Among other things, the Communiqué recognizes that "there is but one China and that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory…" In turn, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai also pledged that China would not intervene in the internal affairs of the Philippines nor seek to impose its policies in Asia, a move which isolated the local communist movement that China had financially and militarily supported.

After putting in force amendments to the constitution and legislative action, President Marcos issued Proclamation 2045, which lifted martial law, on January 17, 1981, while retaining the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus for rebellion and subversion-related crimes. The lifting of martial law was timed with the election of US President Ronald Reagan and the visit of Pope John Paul II, to get support from Reagan and minimize criticism from the Pope.

Third term (1981–1986)

Main page: 1981 Philippine presidential election and referendum

Ferdinand Marcos with US Secretary of State George Shultz, 1982

On June 16, 1981, six months after the lifting of 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 over the other candidates.

Because the Marcos administration's spending had relied so heavily on debt since Marcos's first term in the 60s, the Philippines was left vulnerable when the US economy went into recession in the third quarter of 1981, forcing the Reagan administration to increase interest rates. The Philippine economy began going into decline. The 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% or almost half the Philippine population.

On August 21, 1983, opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated 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 to save his life 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 had finished. The opposition blamed Marcos directly for the assassination while others blamed the military and his wife, Imelda. After the February 1986 People Power revolution swept Aquino's widow to the presidency, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial of Aquino's assassination. The Sandiganbayan convicted 16 military personnel for the murder.

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 had a second transplant in November 1984. Marcos's regime was sensitive to publicity of his condition. 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.

By 1984, US President Ronald Reagan started distancing himself from the Marcos regime that he and previous American presidents had strongly supported even after Marcos declared 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, although during the Carter administration the relationship with the US had soured somewhat when President Jimmy Carter targeted the Philippines in his human rights campaign.

Snap election, People Power Revolution, and exile (1986-1989)

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's 6,787,556 votes. Cheating was reported on both sides. This electoral exercise was marred by widespread reports of violence and tampering of election results.

The failed election process gave a decisive boost to the "People Power movement". Enrile and Ramos would later abandon Marcos and switch sides 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. 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.

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 to Hawaii.

Throughout his stay in Hawaii, he and his family enjoyed a high life, living in a luxurious house in Makiki Heights while shopping and eating in one of the state's most expensive sections, as his wife Imelda entertained guests through various costly parties, while Filipinos back in the Philippines suffered from the debt the Marcos family incurred during their rule, which experts say may be fully paid only by 2025, almost four decades after the downfall of the Marcos authoritarian regime.

Reforms

Masagana 99

Main page: Masagana 99

Marcos's signature agricultural program, Masagana 99, was thus launched on May 21, 1973, as an effort to address a nationwide rice shortage arising from the various natural disasters and pest infestations in 1972.

Its goal was to promote Philippine rice self-sufficiency by raising the Philippines' average palay crop yield from 40 cavans per hectare to 99 cavans (4.4 tons) per hectare. The program planned to achieve this by pushing farmers to use newly developed technologies including high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, low-cost fertilizer, and herbicides.

Masagana 99 also included a supervised credit scheme, which was supposed to provide farmers with the funds needed to pay for the program's technology package. The Central Bank designed subsidized rediscounting facilities for public and private credit institutions throughout the country, encouraging them to give loans to farmers without collateral or other usual borrowing requirements.

The program achieved initial success by encouraging farmers to plant new "Miracle Rice" (IR8) variety of rice, which the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and the UP College of Agriculture through the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Laguna, had been developing since 1962, during the administration of President Carlos P. Garcia.

While this rise of industrialized, chemical agriculture to the Philippines resulted in annual rice production in the Philippines increasing 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 switch to IR8 required more fertilizers and pesticides. This and other related reforms resulted in high profits for transnational corporations, but were generally harmful to small, peasant farmers who were often pushed into poverty.

Economists generally acknowledge Masagana 99 to have failed because the supervised credit scheme it offered to farmers proved unsustainable. The program is said to have catered to rich landowners and has been criticized for leaving poor farmers in debt and for having become a vehicle of political patronage.

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.

From 1972 to 1980, agricultural production fell by 30%. After declaring martial law in 1972, Marcos promised to implement agrarian reforms. However, the land reforms served largely to undermine Marcos's landholder opponents, not to lessen inequality in the countryside, and encouraged conversion to cash tenancy and greater reliance on farm workers.

While the book claimed that agricultural production declined by 30% in the 1970s and suggested that timber exports were growing in the same period, an article published by the World Bank on Philippine Agriculture says 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 the forestry sector actually declined by an annual average rate of 4.4% through the 1970s.

Logging and deforestation

For more details, see Deforestation in the Philippines

The Marcos administration marked a period of intense logging exportation, with commercial logging accounting for 5% of the gross national product during the first half of the 1970s. This was the result of intense demand created by a construction boom in Japan. Timber products became one of the nation's top exports but little attention was paid to the environmental impacts of deforestation as cronies never complied with reforestation agreements.

By the early 1980s, forestry collapsed because most of the Philippines' accessible forests had been depleted – of the 12 million hectares of forestland, about 7 million had been left barren." This was such a severe drop in the Philippines' forest cover that most Philippine logging companies had transferred their operations to Sarawak and other nearby areas by the 1980s.

Data from the Philippines' Forest Management Bureau indicates that the rate of forest destruction in the Philippines 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".

Heavy industrialization projects

In 1979, Marcos put a range of 11 heavy industrialization projects on the Philippines' economic agenda.

The eleven priority projects were: the construction of an aluminum smelter, a copper smelter, an integrated petrochemical complex, an integrated pulp and paper plant, an integrated steel mill, and a phosphatic fertilizer plant; the development of an alcogas industry; the expansion of the country's cement industry; the integration of the country's coconut industry; the promotion of diesel engine manufacturing; and the construction of a nuclear power plant.

Other industrialization projects during the Marcos administration included 17 hydroelectric and geothermal power plants to lessen the country's dependency on oil. With the commissioning of the Tongonan 1 and Palinpinon 1 geothermal plants in 1983, the Philippines became the second largest producer of geothermal power in the world.

The Philippine economy began to go in decline in 1981 because of excessive debt, however, and finally went into a tailspin in 1984. This resulted in the closure of factories, massive layoffs, and the end of work on Marcos's industrialization projects until he was finally deposed two years later.

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) is one of the six nuclear power plants that the Marcos regime planned to build. It stands in Morong, Bataan, atop Napot Point that overlooks the South China Sea. Construction of the BNPP began in 1976 and was completed in 1985.

Controversy surrounding the BNPP began well after its construction. In 1974, National Power was already negotiating with General Electric to get the order. However, Westinghouse, another energy company, hired a lobbyist: Herminio Disini, a friend of Ferdinand Marcos. Using Disini's close ties to Marcos, Westinghouse made a direct offer to Marcos and his cabinet to supply a plant with two 620 MW reactors at a base price of $500 million. The estimated total price was raised to around $650 million because of other charges like fuel and transmission lines. Soon after, the negotiations with General Electric were scrapped, and Westinghouse won the deal. By March 1975, Westinghouse's contract price increased to $1.1 billion for interest and escalation costs.

There were numerous issues regarding its safety and usability. After the Three Mile Island incident in the United States, construction of the nuclear power plant was stopped. A safety inquiry was done subsequently, which revealed over 4,000 defects. The site chosen for the nuclear plant was also dangerous, as it was built near the open sea and the then-dormant Mount Pinatubo, and was within 25 miles of three geological faults. The nuclear plant was discontinued in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster. Its goal of generating 620 MW of electricity was never achieved.

Its cost reached over $2.3 million and was only paid off by the government in April 2017, 31 years after the beginning of its construction. However, government spending for the BNPP continues long after that. Maintaining the plant costs the government P40 million a year. In 2011, the government had to reimburse P4.2 billion to National Power Corporation for the plant's maintenance. To contribute to the cost of its maintenance, it was transformed into a tourist attraction.

Educational system

Recognizing the value Filipino culture placed on education, Marcos emphasized the construction of educational infrastructure as early as during his first presidential term. By being more willing than those previous presidents to use foreign loans to fund construction projects, he was able to achieve construct more roads and schoolbuildings than any previous administration.

47 of the Philippines' state colleges and universities were established during Marcos's 21-year administration. Two of these, the Mariano Marcos State University in Ilocos Norte, and the Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University in La Union, were named after Marcos's father Mariano.

The Philippine education system underwent two major periods of restructuring under the Marcos administration: first in 1972 as part of the ideology of the Bagong Lipunan (New Society) alongside the declaration of martial law; and second in 1981 when the Fourth Philippine Republic was established.

The 1972 restructuring marked the first major restructuring of Philippine education since the arrival of the Americans at the turn of the 20th century. It reoriented the teaching of civics and history so that it would reflect values that supported the Bagong Lipunan and its ideology of constitutional authoritarianism. In addition, it attempted to synchronize the educational curriculum with the administration's economic strategy of labor export.

Changes sought by the second restructuring in 1981 was not extensively implemented as the administration was stymied by economic crises, and was eventually deposed.

Establishment of Metro Manila

In 1975, Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 824, placing the four cities and thirteen municipalities in the immediate vicinity of the Province of Manila under the administration of the Metro Manila Commission (MMC), which would serve as the central government of the capital.

The head of the MMC was called a "governor", but the position was an appointive rather than an elected one. Marcos appointed his wife Imelda Marcos as governor.

The governorship of Metro Manila was the second most powerful office in the republic. Given that Metro Manila accounts for around 20% of the country's population, it is estimated to be responsible for at least 70% of gross national receipts. It is the seat of the national government and some 90% of the national government's offices and instrumentalities are located within its environs. Its budget is second to the national government.

This increase in Imelda's political power was so dramatic that it led former UN General Assembly President Carlos P. Romulo to describe her as the Philippines' "de facto vice president".

Economic performance

Real GPD per capita development of the Philippines, 1965 to 1986

The 21-year period of Philippine economic history during Ferdinand Marcos's regime – from his election in 1965 until he was ousted by the People Power Revolution in 1986 – was a period of significant economic highs and lows.

Philippine Annual Gross Domestic Product grew from $5.27 billion in 1964 to $37.14 billion in 1982, a year prior to the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. The GDP went down to $30.7 billion in 1985, after two years of economic recession brought about by political instability following Ninoy's assassination. A considerable amount of this money went to the Marcos family and friends in the form of behest loans.

To help finance a number of economic development projects, the Marcos government borrowed large amounts of money from international lenders. The external debt of the Philippines rose more than 70-fold from $360 million in 1962 to $26.2 billion in 1985, making the Philippines one of the most indebted countries in Asia.

The country's total external debt rose from US$2.3 billion in 1970 to US$26.2 billion in 1985 during Marcos's term. Marcos's critics charged that policies have become debt-driven with rampant corruption and plunder of public funds by Marcos and his cronies. This held the country under a debt-servicing crisis which is expected to be fixed by only 2025. Critics have pointed out an elusive state of the country's development as the period is marred by a sharp devaluing of the Philippine Peso from 3.9 to 20.53. The overall economy experienced a slower growth GDP per capita, lower wage conditions and higher unemployment especially towards the end of Marcos's term after the 1983–1984 recession. Economists have noted that poverty incidence grew from 41% in the 1960s at the time Marcos took the Presidency to 59% when he was removed from power.

Trials and reparations

Roxas v. Marcos

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 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 any civil case in the history of the United States. In November 1998, the Hawaii Supreme Court overturned the ruling, but still maintained the award of US$6 million for the illegal arrest.

Sandiganbayan, Supreme Court, and international trials

Ferdinand Marcos with Emmanuel Pelaez

On November 9, 2018, Imelda Marcos was found "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" by the Sandiganbayan of seven counts of graft for the private organizations set up in Switzerland during her active duty 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 affirms that the Marcoses' assets, that are beyond the legal and declared government salaries, are considered as ill-gotten wealth. In 1998 however, the Supreme Court acquitted Imelda Marcos of corruption charges from a previous graft conviction in 1993.

Some US Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit confirmed a contempt judgement in relation to the assets of Imelda and her son Bongbong in the United States. Although on a different subject matter, this judgement awarded $353.6 million to human rights victims, which was arguably the largest contempt award ever affirmed by an appellate court.

Reparations

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 execution and disappearances.

The Swiss government, initially reluctant to respond to allegations that stolen funds were held in Swiss accounts, has returned $684 million of Marcos's stash.

Corazon Aquino repealed many of the repressive laws that had been enacted during Marcos's dictatorship. She restored the right of access to 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 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, the US Supreme Court (in a 7–2 ruling penned by Justice Anthony Kennedy in Republic of Philippines v. Pimentel) held 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 that awarded the $2 billion in compensation to human rights victims during the term of former President Ferdinand Marcos.

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, enforced disappearances, and other human rights violations committed under the regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Compensation came from P10 billion of stolen wealth seized by the government from the Marcoses. A total of 11,103 victims of human rights violations under Martial Law received compensation in 2018. A bill filed in Congress in 2020 proposes to compensate tens of thousands of people who are still not officially recognized as victims of state-sponsored violence during the Marcos regime.

Ill-gotten wealth and kleptocracy

Main page: Unexplained wealth of the Marcos family

The Philippine Supreme Court considers all Marcos assets beyond their legally declared earnings/salary to be ill-gotten wealth and such wealth to have been forfeited in favor of the government or human rights victims.

According to Presidential Commission on Good Government, the Marcos family and their cronies looted so much wealth from the Philippines that, to this day, investigators have difficulty determining precisely how many billions of dollars were stolen. The agency has estimated that Marcos stole around $5 billion to $10 billion from the Philippine treasury during his presidency from 1965 to 1986, while earning an annual salary equivalent to only US$13,500.00.

Adjusted for inflation, this would be equivalent to about US$11.16 billion to US$22.3 billion or over 550 billion to 1.1 trillion Philippine pesos in 2017.

Among the sources of the Marcos wealth are alleged to be diverted foreign economic aid, US government military aid (including huge discretionary funds at Marcos disposal as a "reward" for sending some Filipino troops to Vietnam) and kickbacks from public works contracts over a two-decades-long rule.

On September 3, 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte said the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was "ready to return" their stolen wealth to the government, possibly through a settlement. In January 2018, a draft House Bill proposing a compromise settlement and immunity for the Marcoses submitted by the late Ferdinand Marcos's legal counsel Oliver Lozano was revealed on social media to have been received by the Duterte government in July 2017.

Death and burial

Ferdinand E. Marcos Presidential Center sign

The body of Ferdinand Marcos was stored in a refrigerated crypt at the Ferdinand E. Marcos Presidential Center in Batac, Ilocos Norte until 2016.

Marco 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 meeting with Laurel, Marcos offered to return 90% of his ill-gotten wealth 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's offer was rebuffed by the Aquino government and by Imelda Marcos.

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 where his remains were visited daily by the Marcos family, political allies and friends.

The Aquino government refused to allow Marcos's body to be brought back to the Philippines. The body was only brought back to the Philippines four years after Marcos's 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. On November 18, 2016, the remains of Marcos were buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte 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 helicopters, his family and their supporters flew his remains from Ilocos to Manila for a private burial.

In the months prior, opinion on his burial at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani had been 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, calling him a "thief".

Honors

National honors

Philippines:
- : Chief Commander of the Philippine Legion of Honor (September 11, 1972)
- Man of the Year 1965, Philippine Free Press (January 1, 1966)
- : Knight Grand Cross of Rizal, KGCR of the Order of the Knights of Rizal.

Foreign honors

Gabon:
- Grand Cross of the Order of the Equatorial Star
Japan:
- Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (September 20, 1966)
Romania:
- Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic (April 9, 1975)
Singapore:
- Order of Temasek (January 15, 1974)
Spain:
- Knight of the Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (December 22, 1969)
- Grand Cross of the Order of Military Merit
Thailand:
- Knight of the Most Auspicious Order of the Rajamitrabhorn (January 15, 1968)
Indonesia:
- Recipient of the Star of the Republic of Indonesia, 1st class (January 12, 1968)

Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were jointly credited in 1989 by Guinness World Records with the largest-ever theft from a government (an estimated 5 billion to 10 billion US dollars), a record they still hold today.