127 Facts About Ferdinand Marcos

1.

Ferdinand Marcos 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.

2.

Ferdinand Marcos was elected the President of the Philippines in 1965 and presided over an economy that grew during the beginning of his 20-year rule but would end in the loss of livelihood, extreme poverty, and a crushing debt crisis.

3.

Ferdinand Marcos pursued an aggressive program of infrastructure development funded by foreign debt, making him popular during his first term, although it triggered an inflationary crisis which led to social unrest in his second term.

4.

Ferdinand Marcos placed the Philippines under martial law on September 23,1972, shortly before the end of his second term.

5.

Ferdinand Marcos was succeeded as president by Aquino's widow, Corazon "Cory" Aquino.

6.

The PCGG maintained that the Ferdinand Marcos family enjoyed a decadent lifestyle, taking away billions of dollars from the Philippines between 1965 and 1986.

7.

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 election.

8.

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos was born on September 11,1917, in the town of Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, to Mariano Marcos and Josefa Edralin.

9.

Mariano Ferdinand Marcos was a lawyer and congressman from Ilocos Norte, Philippines.

10.

Ferdinand Marcos was executed by Filipino guerillas in 1945 for being a Japanese propagandist and collaborator during World War II.

11.

Ferdinand Marcos was first baptized and raised into the Philippine Independent Church.

12.

Ferdinand Marcos subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism in later life to marry Imelda Trinidad Romualdez.

13.

Ferdinand Marcos lived with a common-law wife, Carmen Ortega, an Ilocana mestiza who was 1949 Miss Press Photography.

14.

Not much is known about what happened to Ortega and their children after, but Ferdinand Marcos married Imelda Trinidad Romualdez on April 17,1954, only 11 days after they first met.

15.

Ferdinand Marcos's fourth child with Ortega was born after his marriage to Imelda.

16.

Ferdinand Marcos had an affair with American actress Dovie Beams from 1968 to 1970.

17.

Ferdinand Marcos claimed that his ancestor was a 16th century pirate, Limahong, who used to raid the coasts of the South China Sea.

18.

Ferdinand Marcos is a Chinese mestizo descendant, just like many other presidents.

19.

Ferdinand Marcos studied law at the University of the Philippines in Manila, attending the College of Law.

20.

Ferdinand Marcos excelled in both curricular and extra-curricular activities, becoming a member of the university's swimming, boxing, and wrestling teams.

21.

Ferdinand Marcos was an accomplished orator, debater, and writer for the student newspaper.

22.

Ferdinand Marcos 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.

23.

Ferdinand Marcos first shot into national notoriety over the murder of Julio Nalundasan.

24.

In December 1938, Ferdinand Marcos was prosecuted for the murder of Nalundasan.

25.

Ferdinand Marcos was not the only accused from the Marcos clan.

26.

The evidence was strong against the young Ferdinand Marcos, who was a member of the University of the Philippines rifle team and a national rifle champion.

27.

The Ferdinand Marcos family took their appeal to the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

28.

Ferdinand Marcos, who had received ROTC training, was activated for service in the US Armed Forces in the Philippines after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

29.

Ferdinand Marcos 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.

30.

Ferdinand Marcos joined the "Liberal Wing" that split from the Nacionalista Party, which eventually became the Liberal Party.

31.

Ferdinand Marcos became chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Industry and a member of the House Committees on Defense, Ways and Means; Industry; Banks Currency; War Veterans; Civil Service; and on Corporations and Economic Planning.

32.

Ferdinand Marcos was a member of the Special Committee on Import and Price Controls and the Special Committee on Reparations, and of the House Electoral Tribunal.

33.

Ferdinand Marcos became the executive vice president of the Liberal Party in and served as the party president from 1961 to 1964.

34.

Ferdinand Marcos introduced a number of significant bills, many of which found their way into the Republic statute books.

35.

Ferdinand Marcos 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.

36.

Ferdinand Marcos ran a populist campaign emphasizing that he was a bemedalled war hero emerging from World War II.

37.

Ferdinand Marcos was inaugurated to his first term as the 10th president of the Philippines on December 30,1965, after winning the Philippine presidential election of 1965 against the incumbent president, Diosdado Macapagal.

38.

Ferdinand Marcos's inauguration marked the beginning of his two-decade long stay in power, even though the 1935 Philippine Constitution had set a limit of only two four-year terms of office.

39.

Ferdinand Marcos significantly increased the budget of the armed forces, tapping them in civil projects such as the construction of schools.

40.

Generals loyal to Ferdinand Marcos were allowed to stay in their positions past their retirement age, or were rewarded with civilian government posts, leading Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.

41.

Under intense pressure from the administration of Lyndon B Johnson, Marcos reversed his pre-presidency position of not sending Philippine forces to Vietnam War, and consented to a limited involvement, asking Congress to approve sending a combat engineer unit.

42.

Ferdinand Marcos was brought to then-Cavite Governor Delfin N Montano, to whom he recounted the story of the Jabidah massacre, saying that numerous Moro army recruits had been executed en-masse by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines on March 18,1968.

43.

Under the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines which was in force at the time, Ferdinand Marcos was supposed to be allowed a maximum of two four-year terms as president.

44.

Ferdinand Marcos was reported to have spent PHP100 for every PHP1 that Osmena spent, using up PHP24 million in Cebu alone.

45.

The Ferdinand Marcos administration ran to the International Monetary Fund for help, and the IMF offered a debt restructuring deal.

46.

Presidential elections were held on November 11,1969, and Ferdinand Marcos was reelected for a second term.

47.

Ferdinand Marcos was the first and last Filipino president to win a second full term.

48.

Ferdinand Marcos's running mate, incumbent Vice President Fernando Lopez was elected to a third full term as Vice President of the Philippines.

49.

Ferdinand Marcos blamed the then-still-nascent Communist Party of the Philippines, and issued Proclamation No 889, through which he assumed emergency powers and suspended the writ of habeas corpus.

50.

Ferdinand Marcos again blamed the communists, although the only suspects caught in connection to the explosions were linked to the Philippine Constabulary.

51.

Marcos's spending during the campaign led to opposition figures such as Senator Lorenzo Tanada, Senator Jovito Salonga, and Senator Jose W Diokno to accuse Marcos of wanting to stay in power even beyond the two term maximum set for the presidency by the 1935 constitution.

52.

When Ferdinand Marcos became president in 1965, Philippine policy and politics functioned under a post-World War II geopolitical framework.

53.

The investigation on the scheme was effectively shelved when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in September 1972, and had 11 opposition delegates arrested.

54.

The 1973 constitutional plebiscite was called to ratify the new constitution, but the validity of the ratification was brought to question because Ferdinand Marcos replaced the method of voting through secret ballot with a system of viva voce voting by "citizen's assemblies".

55.

Ferdinand Marcos said that the information he has on the assassination plans are 'hard' or well-sourced and he has to make sure that it reaches President Marcos.

56.

Communist Party Leader Jose Maria Sison had calculated that Ferdinand Marcos could be provoked into cracking down on his opponents, thereby driving thousands of political activists into the underground, the anonymous former officials said.

57.

Some historians claim Ferdinand Marcos was responsible for the Plaza Miranda bombing as he is known to have used false flag operations as a pretext for martial law.

58.

US intelligence documents declassified in the 1990s contained further evidence implicating Ferdinand Marcos, provided by a CIA mole within the Philippine Army.

59.

Ferdinand Marcos claimed that martial law was the prelude to creating his Bagong Lipunan, a "New Society" based on new social and political values.

60.

The Ferdinand Marcos regime instituted a youth organization, known as the Kabataang Barangay, which was led by Ferdinand Marcos's eldest daughter Imee.

61.

Between 1972 and 1976, Ferdinand 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.

62.

In June 1975, President Ferdinand Marcos went to the PRC and signed a Joint Communique normalizing relations between the Philippines and China.

63.

Ferdinand Marcos did not release Aquino, but announced that the 1978 Philippine parliamentary election would be held in 1978.

64.

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.

65.

Ferdinand Marcos is the eponym of the Cesar Virata School of Business, the business school of the University of the Philippines Diliman.

66.

President Ferdinand Marcos ran while the major opposition parties, the United Nationalists Democratic Organizations, a coalition of opposition parties and LABAN, boycotted the election.

67.

Ferdinand Marcos 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.

68.

On November 22,2007, Pablo Martinez, one of the soldiers convicted in the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, alleged that it was Ferdinand Marcos crony Danding Cojuangco who ordered the assassination of Ninoy Aquino Jr.

69.

Ferdinand Marcos had a kidney transplant in August 1983, and when his body rejected the first kidney transplant, he had a second transplant in November 1984.

70.

Ferdinand Marcos's regime was sensitive to publicity of his condition; a palace physician who alleged that during one of these periods Ferdinand Marcos had undergone a kidney transplant was shortly afterwards found murdered.

71.

Ferdinand Marcos dismissed speculations of his ailing health as he used to be an avid golfer and fitness buff who liked showing off his physique.

72.

Ferdinand Marcos himself diverted large sums of government money to his party's campaign funds.

73.

Ferdinand Marcos ordered a cut in government expenditures and used a portion of the savings to finance the Sariling Sikap, a livelihood program he established in 1984.

74.

In 1981, Ferdinand Marcos issued Letter of Instructions No 1107 mandating the Central Bank of the Philippines to analyze the probability of establishing and funding the operation of a credit bureau in the Philippines due to the disturbing increase of failures on corporate borrowers.

75.

In late 1985, in the face of escalating public discontent and under pressure from foreign allies, Ferdinand Marcos called a snap election with more than a year left in his term.

76.

The opposition to Ferdinand Marcos united behind two American-educated leaders, Aquino's widow, Corazon, and her running mate, Salvador Laurel.

77.

Ferdinand Marcos was referring to both presidential candidate Corazon Aquino's father-in-law Benigno Aquino Sr.

78.

The final tally of the COMELEC had Ferdinand Marcos winning with 10,807,197 votes against Aquino's 9,291,761 votes.

79.

Ferdinand Marcos had provided favors to the Soviets such as allowing the banned Philippine Communist Party to visit the Soviet Union for consultations.

80.

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, and in his claim, it was in order for Ferdinand Marcos to have a pretext for imposing martial law.

81.

On February 25,1986, rival presidential inaugurations were held, but as Aquino supporters overran parts of Manila and seized state broadcaster PTV-4, Ferdinand Marcos was forced to flee.

82.

At 15:00 PST on February 25,1986, Ferdinand Marcos talked to United States Senator Paul Laxalt, a close associate of the United States President, Ronald Reagan, asking for advice from the White House.

83.

Laxalt advised him to "cut and cut cleanly", to which Ferdinand Marcos expressed his disappointment after a short pause.

84.

Contrary to the widely-held notion that the protests were secluded only within Metro Manila, protests against Ferdinand Marcos occurred in the provinces and islands of Visayas and Mindanao.

85.

Ferdinand Marcos had thought of being flown to his hometown in Ilocos Norte, greeted by his loyal supporters, and initiating a plot to kidnap Corazon Aquino.

86.

Reagan personally wrote to Ferdinand Marcos informing him that he believed his innocence of the charges against him, but reminding him that the case was out of his hands.

87.

Ferdinand Marcos assured him that they will have every opportunity to prove their innocence in the US justice system.

88.

Ferdinand Marcos was admitted to the hospital on January 15,1989, with pneumonia and underwent a series of operations.

89.

However, Ferdinand Marcos's offer was rebuffed by the Aquino government and by Imelda Ferdinand Marcos.

90.

Moments after, the younger Ferdinand Marcos 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".

91.

Ferdinand Marcos was interred in a private mausoleum at Byodo-In Temple on the island of Oahu where his remains were visited daily by the Ferdinand Marcos family, political allies and friends.

92.

On November 18,2016, the remains of Ferdinand Marcos were buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte despite opposition from various groups.

93.

The League of Filipino Students described the transfer of Ferdinand Marcos's remains as being done like "a thief in the night".

94.

The Kabataan Partylist condemned the burial, labeling it as a "grave travesty" and as "galawang Hokage" in reference to the burial of Ferdinand Marcos being planned and conducted unbeknownst to the public.

95.

On November 9,2018, Imelda Ferdinand 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.

96.

Ferdinand Marcos restored the right of access to habeas corpus, repealed anti-labor laws and freed hundreds of political prisoners.

97.

Ferdinand Marcos left an economic legacy of debt, hardship and excess of dictatorship.

98.

Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial.

99.

The Ferdinand Marcos regime had started to kill hundreds of Moros even before the imposition of martial law in 1972.

100.

Thousands of Moro Muslims were killed during the Ferdinand Marcos regime, prompting them to form insurgent groups and separatist movements such as the Moro National Liberation Front and Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which became more radical with time due to atrocities against Muslims.

101.

The agency has estimated that Ferdinand 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.

102.

In 1998, the Philippine Supreme Court overturned the previous conviction of Imelda Ferdinand Marcos and acquitted her of corruption charges.

103.

In 2012, a US Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit upheld a contempt judgement against Imelda and her son Bongbong Ferdinand Marcos for violating an injunction barring them from dissipating their assets, and awarded $353.6 million to human rights victims.

104.

In 2014, Vilma Bautista, the former secretary of Imelda Ferdinand Marcos was sentenced to prison for conspiring to sell a Monet, Sisley, and other masterpiece artworks belonging to the Republic of the Philippines for tens of millions of dollars.

105.

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.

106.

The process by which Ferdinand Marcos laundered dirty money abroad was very comprehensive and difficult to track.

107.

Ferdinand Marcos's purchases included a condominium, a home, two office buildings and an annex in San Francisco, as well as a home in San Bruno.

108.

The Ferdinand Marcos family spent approximately $3 million to $5 million in furnishings and improvements.

109.

Imelda Ferdinand Marcos purchased five expensive Manhattan condominiums at the Olympic Towers, located on 5th Avenue, New York.

110.

The initial deposit of under $1 million grew into hundreds of millions, especially after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.

111.

For example, in the creation of the Maler Foundation, Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos created it but appointed Andre Barbey and Jean Louis Suiner as attorneys, administrators, and managers of the foundation.

112.

Ferdinand Marcos's administration spawned new oligarchs in Philippine society who became instant millionaires.

113.

Ferdinand Marcos's cronies were awarded timber, mining and oil concessions and vast tracts of rich government agricultural and urban lands, not to mention lush government construction contracts.

114.

Ferdinand Marcos silenced the free press, making the press of the state propaganda the only legal one, which was a common practice for governments around the world that sought to fight communism.

115.

At this point, Ferdinand Marcos controlled both the oligarchy and the oligopoly.

116.

Ferdinand Marcos even died without seeing his son Eugenio Jr.

117.

Massive foreign loans enabled Ferdinand Marcos to build more schools, hospitals and infrastructure than all of his predecessors combined, but crippled the Philippine economy.

118.

Ferdinand Marcos projected himself to the Philippine public as having spent a lot on construction projects, and his record upholds that reputation.

119.

The Ferdinand Marcos administration's spending on construction projects expanded even more with the construction of prominent building projects, mostly meant to build up Imelda Ferdinand Marcos's power base within the administration by projecting her as a patroness of the arts.

120.

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

121.

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is one of the six nuclear power plants that the Ferdinand Marcos regime planned to build.

122.

In 1975, Ferdinand 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, which would serve as the central government of the capital.

123.

From 1972 to 1986, the Ferdinand Marcos Administration codified laws through 2,036 Presidential Decrees, an average of 145 per year during the 14-year period.

124.

One of these was Fidel Ramos, a general promoted by Ferdinand Marcos who supervised many terror killings and tortures, who later switched sides and subsequently became president himself through free elections.

125.

Therefore, Ferdinand Marcos worked to identify himself closely with the US in order to secure a strong bargaining position with their government.

126.

US support was believed to be the only reason why Ferdinand Marcos remained in power.

127.

Over his term, Ferdinand Marcos was able to strengthen his ties to the US government.