Ferdinand Marcos
| Born: | September 11, 1917 |
|---|---|
| In Office: | December 30, 1965 – February 25, 1986 |
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralín Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives (1949-1959) and a member of the Philippine Senate (1959-1965). During World War II he claimed to be the leader of Ang Maharlika, a guerrilla force in northern Luzon. In 1963 he became Senate President. As Philippine president and strongman, his greatest achievement was in the fields of infrastructure development and international diplomacy. However, his administration was marred by massive government corruption, despotism, nepotism, political repression and human rights violations. In 1986 he was removed from power during the People Power Revolution after it was revealed he had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States.
Marcos was born on September 11, 1917 in Batac, a small town in Ilocos Norte. Named by his parents, Mariano Marcos and Josefa Edralin, after Ferdinand VII of Spain, baptized into the Philippine Independent Church, Marcos was a champion debater, boxer, swimmer and a wrestler while in the University of the Philippines. Marcos graduated cum laude with a law degree from the U.P. College of Law in 1939 and was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu international honor society. As a young law student of the University of the Philippines, Marcos was indicted and convicted of the murder of Julio Nalundasan, the man who twice defeated his father for a National Assembly seat. While in detention, he studied for and passed the bar examination with one of the highest scores in history. He appealed his conviction and argued his case before the Supreme Court of the Philippines. His father, who had an important voice due to his political position, coerced the Supreme Court to acquit him of the charges.[1] When the Second World War broke out, Marcos was called to arms in defense of the Philippines against the Japanese. He was a combat intelligence officer of the 21st Infantry division. He fought in the three-month Battle of Bataan in 1942, and was one of the victims of the Bataan Death March, a Japanese war crime in which thousands of prisoners of war were forcibly transported after being defeated. He was released later. Though he was captured once more at Fort Santiago, he escaped and joined the guerrilla movements against the Japanese. He claimed to have been one of the guerrilla leaders in Luzon and that his greatest exploit was the Battle of Besang Pass, though the veracity of his claims had been widely questioned. However, genuine photos taken right after the war showed Marcos with decorations on his chest: a Distinguished Service Cross, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart [5]. Subsequent claims to other awards proved to be a point of contention among historians.
Prior to Marcos, Philippine presidents had followed the path of "traditional politics" by using their position to help along friends and allies before stepping down for the next "player." Marcos essentially destroyed this setup through military rule, which allowed him to rewrite the rules of the game so they favored the Marcoses and their allies. His practice of using the politics of patronage in his desire to be the "apo" or godfather of not just the people, but the judiciary, legislature and administrative branches of the government ensured his downfall, no matter how Marcos justified it according to his own philosophy of the "politics of achievement". This practice entailed bribery, racketeering, and embezzlement to gain the support of the aforementioned sectors. The 14 years of his dictatorship, according to critics, have warped the legislative, judiciary and the military.[27][28] Another allegation was that his family and cronies looted so much wealth from the country that to this day investigators have difficulty determining precisely how many billions of dollars have been salted away. The Swiss government has also returned US$684 million in allegedly ill-gotten Marcos wealth.[29][30][31] According to staunch Marcos critic Jovito Salonga, author of the book "Presidential Plunder: the Quest for the Marcos Ill-Gotten Wealth," monopolies in several vital industries have been created and placed under the control of Marcos cronies, such as coconut (under Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. and Juan Ponce Enrile), tobacco (under Lucio Tan), banana (under Antonio Floirendo), manufacturing (under Herminio Disini and Ricardo Silverio), and sugar (under Roberto Benedicto). The Marcos and Romualdez families became owners, directly or indirectly, of the nation's largest corporations, such as the Philippine Long Distance Company (PLDT), the Philippine Airlines (PAL), Meralco (a national electric company), Fortune Tobacco, the San Miguel Corporation (Asia's largest beer and bottling company), numerous newspapers, radio and TV broadcasting companies, several banks, real estate properties in New York, California and Hawaii. It was no exaggeration when Imelda Marcos declared in an interview, that her family "own practically everything in the Philippines."[32] The Aquino government also accused them of skimming off foreign aid and international assistance. This is a clear example of the aforementioned "crony capitalism" that Marcos introduced during the New Society. His supporters claim Marcos was a good president gone bad and that he was a man of rare gifts — a brilliant lawyer, a shrewd politician and keen legal analyst with a ruthless streak and a flair for leadership. Having been in power for more than 20 years, Marcos also had the very rare opportunity to lead the Philippines toward prosperity, with massive infrastructure he put in place as well as an economy on the rise. However, he put these talents to work by building a regime that he apparently intended to perpetuate as a dynasty. A former aide of Marcos said that "Nobody will ever know what a remarkable president he could have made. That's the saddest part". Among the many documents he left behind in the Palace, after he fled in 1986, was one appointing his wife as his successor. Opponents state that the evidence suggests that he used the communist threat as a pretext for seizing power. However, the communist insurgency was at its peak during the late 1960s to early 1970s when it was found out that the People's Republic of China was shipping arms to support the communist cause in the Philippines after the interception of a vessel containing loads of firearms. After he was overthrown, former Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile stated that certain incidents had been contrived to justify the imposition of martial law,[33][34] such as Enrile's ambush. The martial law dictatorship may have helped boost the communist insurgency's strength and numbers, but not to the point that could have led to the overthrow of the elected government. Marcos' regime was crucial in the United States' fight against communism and its influences, with Marcos himself being a staunch anti-communist. Marcos however had an ironically mild streak to his "strongman" image, and as much as possible avoided bloodshed and confrontation.[citation needed] His most ardent supporters claim Marcos was serious about martial law and had genuine concern for reforming the society as evidenced by his actions during the period, up until his cronies, whom he entirely trusted, had firmly entrenched themselves in the government. By then, they say he was too ill and too dependent on them to do something about it. The same has been said about his relationship with his wife Imelda, who became the government's main public figure in light of his illness, by then wielding perhaps more power than Marcos himself. It is important to note that many laws written by Marcos are still in force and in effect. Out of thousands of proclamations, decrees and executive orders, only a few were repealed, revoked, modified or amended.[35] Few credit Marcos for promoting Filipino culture and nationalism. His 21 years in power with the help of U.S. massive economic aid and foreign loans enabled Marcos to build more schools, hospitals and infrastructure than any of his predecessors combined.[36] Due to his iron rule, he was able to impose order and reduce crime by strict implementation of the law. The relative economic success that the Philippines enjoyed during the initial part of his presidency is hard to dispel. Many of Marcos' accomplishments were overlooked after the so-called "People Power Revolution", but the Marcos era definitely had accomplishments in its own right. A journalist said that "The Marcoses were the best of us, and they were the worst of us. That's why we say we hate them so much." Writer Manuel L. Quezon III states that "In the end, as Marcos’ health and grip on power weakened, he came to validate what is said to be the fundamental weakness of all strong man regimes: as the saying goes, nothing grows under the shade of a great tree. Marcos could not — would not — provide for a successor; and it was on the fundamental question of what should come after Marcos that his regime began to crumble, and fell... that he himself, with his virtues (and he had many: love of country, love of learning, discipline, loyalty) and his defects (confusing form with substance, ignoring how the means power is acquired is as important as how you use it, tolerance of his supporters’ mistakes, and his using armed force to compensate for some political weaknesses) are as much about our society’s strengths and weaknesses, as they were about his own [6]." According to Transparency International, Marcos is the second most corrupt head of government ever, after Suharto.[37] Even so, according to a recent survey, some Filipinos prefer Marcos' rule due to the shape of the country in administrations succeeding his.[38] Many admire his autocratic, strong-arm rule, saying that his style of leadership is sorely missed and needed in the post-EDSA Philippines where too much democracy has ruined the body politic, with fractious standoffs in Congress, endless so-called "People Power" demonstrations, deadlocks in the Senate and movie actors as well as traditional politicians being elected into public office, as well as uneducated masses being easily manipulated to vote for famous individuals or corrupt patronage candidates. A few are nostalgic for the Marcos era, where the government was well-organized and laws were strictly followed by civilians, leading to a relatively disciplined populace. On the other hand, many despise his regime, his silencing the free press, his curtailing of civil liberties such as the right to peaceably assemble, his dictatorial control, the imprisonment, torture, murder and disappearance of thousands of his oppositionists, and his supposed shameless plunder of the nation's treasury. It is quite evident that the People Power Revolution left the Philippine society polarized. Nostalgia remains high in parts of the populace for the Marcos era due to the downward spiral the Philippines fell into after his departure. It can be said that his public image has been significantly rehabilitated after worsening political and economic problems that have hounded his successors. The irony is that these economic troubles are largely due to the country's massive debts incurred during his administration. The Marcos Era's legacy, polarizing as it is, remains deeply embedded in the Philippines today.