1. Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981, granting himself expanded powers under the 1973 Constitution.
125 Facts About Ferdinand Marcos
1. 2.
Ferdinand Marcos was deposed in 1986 by the People Power Revolution and was succeeded as president by Corazon Aquino.
3.
Ferdinand Marcos served in the Philippine House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the Philippine Senate from 1959 to 1965.
4.
Ferdinand Marcos presided over an economy that grew during the beginning of his 20-year rule, but ended in the loss of livelihood and extreme poverty for almost half the Philippine population, combined with a debt crisis.
5.
Ferdinand Marcos pursued infrastructure development funded by foreign debt, making him popular during his first term, although the aid triggered an inflation crisis that led to social unrest in his second term.
6.
Ferdinand Marcos placed the Philippines under martial law on September 23,1972, shortly before the end of his second term.
7.
Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981, The constitution was revised, media outlets were silenced, and violence and oppression were used against the political opposition, Muslims, suspected communists, and ordinary citizens.
8.
Ferdinand Marcos was succeeded as president by Aquino's widow, Corazon "Cory" Aquino.
9.
Many people who rose to power during the Ferdinand Marcos era remained in power after his exile, including Fidel Ramos, a general who became president.
10.
The PCGG maintained that the Ferdinand Marcos family enjoyed a decadent lifestyle, taking billions of dollars from the Philippines between 1965 and 1986.
11.
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos held the Guinness World Record for the largest-ever theft from a government for decades, although Guinness took the record down from their website while it underwent periodic review a few weeks before the 2022 Philippine presidential elections.
12.
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos was born on September 11,1917, in the town of Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, to Mariano Marcos and Josefa Edralin.
13.
Mariano Ferdinand Marcos was a lawyer and congressman from Ilocos Norte, Philippines.
14.
Ferdinand Marcos was executed by Filipino guerillas in 1945 as a Japanese propagandist and collaborator during World War II.
15.
Ferdinand Marcos claimed that his ancestor was a 16th-century pirate, Limahong, who used to raid the coasts of the South China Sea.
16.
Ferdinand Marcos studied law at the University of the Philippines in Manila, attending the College of Law.
17.
Ferdinand Marcos excelled in both curricular and extra-curricular activities, joining the university's swimming, boxing, and wrestling teams.
18.
Ferdinand Marcos was an accomplished orator, debater, and writer for the student newspaper.
19.
Ferdinand Marcos attended the Reserve Officers' Training Corps He served as an ROTC battalion commander and was commissioned as a third lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary Reserve.
20.
Ferdinand Marcos was a member of the rifle team and a national rifle champion.
21.
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.
22.
Ferdinand Marcos was killed with a single rifle shot at his home in Batac on September 21,1935, after the day after he had defeated Marcos a second time for a seat in the National Assembly.
23.
Ferdinand Marcos was a member of the University of the Philippines rifle team and a national rifle champion.
24.
Ferdinand Marcos was sentenced to 10 to 17 years in prison.
25.
Ferdinand Marcos was convicted by a trial court of frustrated murder, but was acquitted after his own appeal to the Supreme Court.
26.
Ferdinand Marcos was one of eleven lawyers to act as a special prosecutor tasked to try by "process of law and justice" all those accused of collaboration with the Japanese.
27.
Ferdinand Marcos joined the "Liberal Wing" that split from the Nacionalista Party, which became the Liberal Party.
28.
Ferdinand Marcos then became chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Industry and member of the House Committees on Defense, Ways and Means; Industry; Banks Currency; War Veterans; Civil Service; and on Corporations and Economic Planning.
29.
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.
30.
Ferdinand Marcos became executive vice president of the Liberal Party and served as party president from 1961 to 1964.
31.
Ferdinand Marcos introduced significant bills, many of which were enacted.
32.
Ferdinand Marcos ran a populist campaign emphasizing that he was a medalled war hero.
33.
In 1962, Ferdinand Marcos claimed to be the most decorated war hero of the Philippines by garnering almost every medal and decoration that the Filipino and American governments had established.
34.
Ferdinand Marcos was inaugurated as the 10th president of the Philippines on December 30,1965.
35.
Ferdinand Marcos launched an aggressive program of infrastructure development funded by foreign loans.
36.
Ferdinand Marcos remained popular for most of his first term; although his popularity got flagged after debt-driven spending which triggered an inflationary crisis in November and December 1969.
37.
Ferdinand Marcos developed close relations with Philippine military officers and began expanding the armed forces by allowing loyal generals to stay in their positions past retirement age, or giving them government posts.
38.
Ferdinand Marcos gained the support of the US Johnson administration by allowing Philippine involvement in the Vietnam War via the Philippine Civic Action Group.
39.
Ferdinand Marcos significantly increased the defense budget, tapping them for civil projects such as school construction.
40.
Under intense pressure from the Johnson administration, Ferdinand Marcos reversed his prior position of not sending Philippine forces to Vietnam, consenting to limited involvement.
41.
Ferdinand Marcos then asked Congress to approve sending a combat engineer unit.
42.
The Ferdinand Marcos administration continued this loan-funded spending throughout his reign, producing economic instability that continued for decades.
43.
Ferdinand Marcos was brought to then-Cavite Governor Delfin N Montano, to whom he described the Jabidah massacre, saying that numerous Moro army recruits had been executed by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines on March 18,1968.
44.
The 1969 reelection campaign of Ferdinand Marcos started in July 1969 when incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos was unanimously nominated as the presidential candidate of the Nacionalista Party, and concluded when Marcos won an unprecedented second term.
45.
Ferdinand Marcos was reported to have spent PHP100 for every PHP1 that his opponent Osmena spent, including PHP24 million in Cebu alone.
46.
Ferdinand Marcos engaged in unofficial diplomacy with the Soviet Bloc, shaped by the Sino-Soviet split.
47.
Ferdinand Marcos was reelected on November 11,1969, in a landslide.
48.
Ferdinand Marcos was the only Filipino president to win a second full term.
49.
Ferdinand Marcos's running mate, incumbent Vice President Fernando Lopez was elected to a third full term as Vice President of the Philippines.
50.
Ferdinand Marcos issued Proclamation No 889, through which he assumed emergency powers and suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
51.
Ferdinand Marcos again blamed the communists, although the only suspects caught were linked to the Philippine Constabulary.
52.
Marcos's spending during the campaign triggered growing public unrest, and led opposition figures such as Senator Lorenzo Tanada, Senator Jovito Salonga, and Senator Jose W Diokno to accuse Marcos of wanting to stay in power beyond the two term constitutional limit.
53.
The Ferdinand Marcos administration included moderate groups under the radical umbrtella.
54.
When Ferdinand Marcos became president, ine policy and politics functioned under a postwar geopolitical framework.
55.
Ferdinand Marcos and the AFP claimed that the Communist Party of the Philippines was a threat, even though it was still a small organization.
56.
Ferdinand Marcos was surprised by his critics by endorsing the move.
57.
The investigation was shelved when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in September 1972, and had 11 opposition delegates arrested.
58.
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 secret ballot voting with a system of viva voce voting by "citizen's assemblies".
59.
Ferdinand Marcos said that his information on the assassination plans was 'hard' and he wanted it to reach President Marcos.
60.
Communist leader Jose Maria Sison had calculated that Ferdinand Marcos could be provoked into cracking down on his opponents, thereby driving political activists into the underground, the anonymous former officials said.
61.
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.
62.
US intelligence documents declassified in the 1990s contained evidence implicating Ferdinand Marcos, provided by a CIA mole within the Philippine Army.
63.
Ferdinand Marcos's act forced many members of the moderate opposition, such as Edgar Jopson, to join the radicals.
64.
Ferdinand Marcos claimed that martial law was the prelude to creating his Bagong Lipunan, a "New Society" based on new social and political values.
65.
One of Ferdinand Marcos' rationalizations for martial law stated that there was a need to "reform society" by placing it under the control of a "benevolent dictator" who could guide the undisciplined populace through a period of chaos.
66.
Ferdinand Marcos referred to this social engineering exercise as the bagong lipunan or "new society".
67.
The Ferdinand Marcos regime instituted a youth organization, known as Kabataang Barangay, which was led by Ferdinand Marcos's eldest daughter Imee.
68.
Between 1972 and 1976, Ferdinand Marcos increased the size of the Philippine military from 65,000 to 270,000 personnel, in response to South Vietnam falling into the hands of North Vietnam and other communist successes in South East Asia.
69.
Ferdinand Marcos supported the growth of a domestic weapons-manufacturing industry and increased military spending.
70.
Ferdinand Marcos organized the Civilian Home Defense Force, precursor of Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit to battle communist and Islamic insurgencies.
71.
In June 1975, President Ferdinand Marcos visited the PRC and signed a Joint Communique normalizing relations between the Philippines and China.
72.
Ferdinand Marcos did not release Aquino, but announced that the 1978 Philippine parliamentary election would be held.
73.
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.
74.
President Ferdinand Marcos ran while the major opposition parties, the United Nationalists Democratic Organizations, a coalition of opposition parties and LABAN, boycotted the election.
75.
The Ferdinand Marcos administration's spending had relied heavily on debt since Ferdinand Marcos's first term in the 60s.
76.
Ferdinand Marcos had returned to the Philippines after three years in exile in the United States, where he had a heart bypass operation after Marcos allowed him to leave the Philippines to seek medical care.
77.
On November 22,2007, Pablo Martinez, one of the soldiers convicted in the Aquino assassination, alleged that Ferdinand Marcos crony Danding Cojuangco had ordered the assassination while Ferdinand Marcos was recuperating from his kidney transplant.
78.
Ferdinand Marcos had a kidney transplant in August 1983, and when his body rejected the first kidney transplant, he underwent a second transplant in November 1984.
79.
Many people questioned whether Ferdinand Marcos had capacity to govern, due to his illness and the burgeoning political unrest.
80.
The economic history of the Philippines during the Ferdinand Marcos regime was a period of economic stress.
81.
The first years of Ferdinand Marcos' administration continued the growth of previous administrations of the Third Philippine Republic, peaking at nearly 9 percent in 1973 and 1976.
82.
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.
83.
The opposition to Ferdinand Marcos united behind two American-educated leaders, Aquino's widow, Corazon, and her running mate, Salvador Laurel.
84.
Ferdinand Marcos was referring to both presidential candidate Corazon Aquino's father-in-law Benigno Aquino Sr.
85.
The final tally of the COMELEC had Ferdinand Marcos winning with 10,807,197 votes against Aquino's 9,291,761 votes.
86.
The fraud culminated in the walkout of 35 COMELEC computer technicians to advance their claim that the official election results were manipulated to favor Ferdinand Marcos, according to their testimonies, which were never validated.
87.
Ferdinand Marcos had provided favors to the Soviets such as allowing the banned Philippine Communist Party to visit the Soviet Union for consultations.
88.
Enrile and Ramos later abandoned Ferdinand Marcos, switched sides and sought protection behind the 1986 People Power Revolution, backed by fellow-American educated Eugenio Lopez Jr.
89.
At the height of the revolution, Enrile claimed that a purported ambush attempt against him years earlier was in fact faked, in order for Ferdinand Marcos to have a pretext for imposing martial law.
90.
Ferdinand Marcos continually maintained that he was the duly elected president for a fourth term, but unfairly and illegally deprived of his right to serve it.
91.
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.
92.
At 15:00 PST on February 25,1986, Ferdinand Marcos talked to United States Senator Paul Laxalt, a close associate of President Reagan, asking for advice.
93.
Laxalt advised him to "cut and cut cleanly", to which Ferdinand Marcos expressed his disappointment.
94.
Contrary to the widely-held notion that the protests were limited to Manila, protests against Ferdinand Marcos occurred in the provinces and on the islands of Visayas and Mindanao.
95.
Hirschfeld stated that Ferdinand Marcos said that he was negotiating with several arms dealers to purchase up to $18 million worth of weapons, including tanks and heat-seeking missiles, and enough ammunition to "last an army three months".
96.
Ferdinand Marcos had thought of flying to his hometown in Ilocos Norte and initiating a plot to kidnap Corazon Aquino.
97.
Ferdinand Marcos made personal appeals to Reagan to put a stop to these cases.
98.
Ferdinand Marcos assured him that they would have every opportunity to prove their innocence.
99.
Ferdinand Marcos was baptized and raised into the Philippine Independent Church.
100.
Ferdinand Marcos lived with a common-law wife, Carmen Ortega, an Ilocana mestiza who was 1949 Miss Press Photography.
101.
Ferdinand Marcos subsequently converted to Catholicism in later life to marry Imelda Trinidad Romualdez.
102.
Ferdinand Marcos's fourth child with Ortega was born after his marriage to Imelda.
103.
Ferdinand Marcos had an affair with American actress Dovie Beams from 1968 to 1970.
104.
Ferdinand Marcos was admitted to the hospital on January 15,1989, with pneumonia and underwent a series of operations.
105.
However, Ferdinand Marcos's offer was rebuffed by the Aquino government and by Imelda.
106.
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".
107.
Ferdinand Marcos was interred in a private mausoleum at Byodo-In Temple on the island of Oahu.
108.
On November 9,2018, Imelda Ferdinand Marcos was found "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" by the Sandiganbayan of seven counts of graft for private organizations set up in Switzerland during her time as a government official from 1968 to 1986.
109.
Ferdinand Marcos restored the right of habeas corpus, repealed anti-labor laws and freed hundreds of political prisoners.
110.
The Ferdinand Marcos regime committed human rights abuses against a long list of opponents.
111.
The Ferdinand Marcos regime killed hundreds of Moros before imposing martial law.
112.
PCOG estimated that Ferdinand Marcos stole around $5 billion to $10 billion, while earning an annual salary equivalent to US$13,500.
113.
In 1990, Imelda Ferdinand Marcos was acquitted of charges that she raided the Philippine's treasury by a US jury.
114.
Ferdinand Marcos was acquitted because the jury deemed that US did not have jurisdiction.
115.
On September 3,2017, then President Rodrigo Duterte said the Ferdinand Marcos family was ready to transfer their wealth to the government.
116.
Ferdinand Marcos projected himself to the public as building vast construction projects, and his record upholds that reputation.
117.
Ferdinand Marcos' spending on construction has been claimed to be intended to position Imelda Ferdinand Marcos as a patron of the arts.
118.
In 1979, Ferdinand Marcos added 11 heavy industrialization projects to the economic agenda.
119.
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is one of Ferdinand Marcos' six planned nuclear power plants.
120.
Ferdinand Marcos was more willing than previous presidents to use foreign loans to fund construction projects allowing him to construct more roads and schoolbuildings than any previous administration.
121.
In 1975, Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Decree No 824, placing the four cities and thirteen municipalities near the Province of Manila under the administration of the Metro Manila Commission.
122.
Ferdinand Marcos relied on this connection to sustain his regime.
123.
Ferdinand Marcos strengthened his ties to the US government by actions such as sending two engineer battalions to the US in the Vietnam War.
124.
Ferdinand Marcos had received warnings from the Philippine embassy that US aid was at risk in the Congress.
125.
Ferdinand Marcos published various books during his term from 1970 to 1983, and a final offering was published posthumously, in 1990.