History 1

ON FERDINAND EDRALIN MARCOS

A Written Report

ANTHONY RATERTA
CARMINA REBLE
GIL MICHAEL REGALADO
Early Life
Ferdinand E. Marcos was born on September 11, 1917 in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte. His
parents, Mariano Marcos and Josefa Edralin, were both teachers. From 1923 to
1929, he attended the Sarrat Central School, Shamrock Elementary School in Laoag
and the Ermita Elementary School in Manila. He finished high school and liberal arts
course at the University of the Philippines. While still a student, he was
commissioned as third lieutenant (apprentice officer) in the Philippine Constabulary
Reserve after having been an ROTC battalion commander.

In 1935, Assemblyman Julio Nalundasan, a political rival of his father, was shot
dead. Suspicion for the crime fell on the Marcoses. Ferdinand Marcos, who was
arrested on a charge of conspiracy to murder, was tried, and found guilty in 1939.
He argued his case on appeal to the Supreme Court, luckily winning an acquittal a
year later.

In the summer of 1939 he received his bachelor’s degree, cum laude from the U.P.
College of Law. He would have been a class valedictorian and magna cum laude had
he not been imprisoned for the Nalundasan murder. The case prevented him from
attending several weeks of classes. He reviewed for the bar examinations while in
prison. He bailed himself out in order to take the examination, where he emerged
topnotcher in November of the same year. He became trial lawyer in Manila. And
during World War II, he served as an officer in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Early Political Career

Marcos became senator after serving as member of the House of Representatives

for three terms. In the Senate he served as minority floor leader before gaining the
Senate presidency. He established a record for having introduced a number of
significant bills, many of which found their way into the republic's statute books.

Presidency

From the start of Marcos’s presidency, escalating United States involvement in the
Vietnam War (1959-1975) made the U.S. military bases in the Philippines—Clark Air
Base and Subic Bay Naval Base—critical staging areas for American forces.
Consequently, the war funneled billions of dollars into the Philippine economy. Many
public-works projects, financed by foreign loans, also helped the economy to
develop rapidly. In addition, Imelda Marcos launched a series of prestige projects in
Manila, including the building of museums and grand hotels.

In 1969, after campaigning on the slogan “Rice and Roads,” Marcos was reelected
president with 74 percent of the vote. He was the first president of the Philippines
to win a second term, which was the most allowed under the country’s constitution.
The races for both houses of the Philippine Congress also went highly in favor of
Marcos’s supporters and his Nationalist Party.

During his second term Marcos faced a host of domestic problems. Many university
students and other Filipinos actively opposed the continued U.S. military presence
in the Philippines and Marcos’s support for U.S. policy in Vietnam. The Communist
Party of the Philippines also became more active, organizing widespread unrest
among the urban and rural poor. In the southern Philippine islands, a Muslim
separatist movement was building momentum. And as Marcos approached the end
of his second term in office, it became increasingly clear that a constitutional
convention charged with drafting a new, post independence constitution did not
intend to abolish the two-term limit for the presidency. Thus, Marcos faced the
prospect of having to leave office after 1973.

Martial Law

The convention never completed its work, however. Claiming anarchy was near,
Marcos declared martial law in 1972, thereby suspending the 1935 constitution,
dissolving Congress, and assuming total power. Marcos suppressed the political
opposition, arresting leaders such as Benigno ('Ninoy') Aquino, Jr., and ended a long
tradition of a free press. A new constitution promulgated in January 1973 gave
Marcos absolute power, and elections were indefinitely postponed. Marcos ruled by
decree, cloaking his dictatorial decisions in the rhetoric of law.

In 1981 Marcos officially lifted martial law, but retained sweeping emergency
powers, in order to validate his power through a sham presidential election.
Predictably, he won an easy victory and another term as president. Then his health
began to fail. He had a degenerative illness, lupus erythematosus, which led to
kidney failure. He was on dialysis and had a kidney transplant. He seemed to be
dying.

Road to Revolution

In 1983 Aquino decided to return to the Philippines, even though he

anticipated being rearrested. Aquino was shot in the back of the head and killed
minutes after his arrival at Manila International Airport (now Ninoy Aquino
International Airport). The government claimed the assassination was the work of a
lone gunman, who had been killed by security police at the airport. A special
commission subsequently concluded the murder was the result of a military
conspiracy, but in 1985 a high court acquitted all of the officers charged with the
crime.

By 1984, his close personal ally, U.S. 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. During the Carter administration the
relation with the U.S. soured somewhat when President Jimmy Carter targeted the
Philippines in his human rights campaign.

In the face of escalating public discontent and under pressure from foreign
allies, Marcos called a snap presidential election for 1986, with more than a year left
in his term. He selected Arturo Tolentino as his running mate. The opposition united
behind Aquino's widow, Corazon, and her running mate, Salvador Laurel.

During the voting, American observers witnessed many irregularities.

Afterward, the two monitoring bodies, one sponsored by a U.S.-based group and the
other an official government commission, reported contradictory election results.
Both candidates claimed victory, but the national assembly recognized Marcos as
the winner. The Catholic Church in Manila issued a statement claiming the election
had been “a fraud unparalleled in history.” Marcos’s claim of victory rang hollow.

People Power Movement

On February 22 two of Marcos’s key military supporters publicly turned against him.
Secretary of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile and Deputy Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos
staged a military mutiny, seizing two vital military installations in suburban Manila.
This mutiny presented Marcos with an immediate challenge that his cousin General
Fabian Ver, the armed forces chief of staff, wanted to meet with decisive force.

Cardinal Sin, using Radio Veritas, summoned the Philippine people into the streets
to block General Ver’s tanks. Thousands of civilians flocked into the streets and
formed a human barricade on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), the main
boulevard between the two military bases. Marcos’s troops lacked either the
brutality or the political will to attack unarmed civilians, and they were effectively
immobilized by the strong show of what Filipinos called “people power.”

Despite these events, Marcos insisted on being inaugurated president in a private

but purely symbolic ceremony on February 25. The next day the Marcoses and their
family and close associates fled the Philippines for Hawaii on two aircraft supplied
by the U.S. Air Force. Aquino became president.

When the Marcoses left the Philippines, the country was burdened with $27 billion in
external debt and was in a deep economic recession. In 1988 Marcos was indicted
by a U.S. grand jury in New York on federal racketeering charges relating to his
years in office. Before he could stand trial, however, Marcos died in Honolulu in
1989. The Philippine government allowed Imelda Marcos to return to the Philippines
and place Marcos’s remains in a refrigerated crypt in his home province in 1991.

Summary

Ferdinand Marcos had the intellect, the leadership skills, and the opportunity to be
the greatest president of the Philippines in the 20th century. Instead, his impact
was ruinous for the economy, the society, and the political institutions of his
country. The lost opportunity of economic growth and social prosperity stunted an
entire generation and left the Philippines far less competitive than many of its
neighbors in Southeast Asia, where economic growth during the same period was
spectacular.

Opinion

Although Marcos is recorded in History negatively by being one of most

corrupt or having run the most corrupt government, there are still parts in Marcos’
leadership that we the Filipino people should be thankful. His desires to improve
and develop the Philippines, although overshadowed by his wrongdoings are still
noteworthy and very significant. A few of them has been very useful to the Filipino
people until today.

I firmly believe that it was not only his abuse of his power that lead him to
downfall but also the abuse of the people around him on their own powers and to
him. And thus the combined effect of their irresponsibility caused the many
uncontrollable scandals and issues in the country, especially the ever becoming
militant University of the Philippines and the growth and encroachment of
communism in the Philippines, both very influential entities.

Only if the Marcos government had a firm grip on the hearts and minds of the
people even with their continued corruption, they could have stirred to country
towards development. But instead the Marcos government curtailed opposition and
wrongly manipulated the aristocrats and oligarchies in the country. Because of this,
a lot of the influential people in the Philippines including top opposition leaders and
communist leaders became active in destabilizing the country in the hopes of
forming a new government.

The ensuing destabilization of the country by very influential people and the
killing of Ninoy gripped the hearts and minds of the people and inspired
nationalism. And thus once again, the failure of the Marcos government to secure
the people first by failing to stop or eradicate the main causes of the countries
destabilization resulted to People Power and the downfall of Marcos regime.

The Marcos government’s failure to make it for their last term thinned the
chance to repair all the damage done by the mess they themselves incurred to the
country. The next government ran by the wife of the assassinated Ninoy Aquino
being tasked to recover the Philippine economy honored the debt of the failed
Marcos Government. Aquino’s failure to effectively handle the new revolutionary
government leads to the continued indebtness of the Philippines until today.

Sources:

• MSN Encarta,
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761557463_2/Ferdinand_Marcos.html

• Philippine Senate Government Website,

http://www.senate.gov.ph/senators/former_senators/ferdinand_marcos.htm

• The Rise and Fall of the New Society by Adriel Obar Melmban

• Think Quest Library,

http://library.thinkquest.org/15816/thebeginning.article4.html

• Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Marcos