<Archive Obituaries> Ferdinand Marcos (September 28th 1989)
Bill Schenley
Photo:
http://www.wellesley.edu/Activities/homepage/filipina/philippines/history/gmarcos.jpg
FROM: The New York Times (September 29th 1989) ~
By Eric Pace
Ferdinand E. Marcos was as tough as he was debonair, and he came to
rule the Philippines with an iron hand before popular unrest forced
him to flee in 1986 after two decades in power.
Mr. Marcos was first elected President in 1965 and converted his
country's sputtering democratic system into a personal fief, with his
luxury-loving wife, Imelda, as virtual co-ruler. He came to control
most of the apparatus of power and acquired the right to rule by
decree. For most of that time, he had the firm support of the United
States.
While he was President, Mr. Marcos was not apologetic about departing
from the norms of Western democracy. ''What we ask of the developed
countries,'' he wrote in 1982, ''is to let the third world find a
third way. We must now create a political and economic system
responsive to our unique character and our special realities.''
A skillful lawyer and orator, Mr. Marcos entered public life in 1949
and served successively as a member of the Philippine House of
Representatives, Senator and president of the Senate before he was
first elected President in 1965. He was re-elected in 1969, later
proclaimed that the governmental machinery was not operating and set
about transforming it.
He entrenched himself as the Philippines' autocratic ruler during the
nine years, from 1972 to 1981, in which he imposed martial law. He
held on to sweeping powers afterward, and his regal manner and
sumptuous way of life seemed to enhance his authority over his
poverty-plagued, largely rural nation of 60 million people, a former
American colony that became independent in 1946.
Defending his right to rule by decree, if he chose, he asserted that
otherwise ''you will have Communists going back and forth, causing the
dastardly ruin of our country, the killing of people and the rape of
women.''
Over the years, Mr. Marcos's hand was strengthened by the support of
the armed forces, whose size he tripled, to 200,000 troops, after
declaring martial law in 1972. The forces included some first-rate
units as well as thousands of unruly and ill-equipped personnel of the
civilian home defense forces and other paramilitary organizations. In
the martial-law years, he also consolidated his parliamentary power
and curbed civil liberties, harassing or exiling political opponents.
Eventually, in the 1980's, corruption and mismanagement left the
Philippine economy in obvious trouble, and Mr. Marcos's prestige and
power shrank. His health faltered, the United States moved away from
him and political opponents and Communist insurgents grew more
assertive.
And he was put on the defensive after Aug. 21, 1983, when Benigno S.
Aquino Jr., the main opposition leader, was shot and killed at the
Manila airport as he returned home after three years of self-exile in
the United States.
The indignation caused by the killing, coupled with longstanding
discontent, led to demonstrations and rioting that undermined his
authority and ultimately brought Corazon C. Aquino, Mr. Aquino's
widow, to power.
Corruption Within
Mr. Marcos's aura was also tarnished by accusations and problems
concerning his country's business and economic life. Under his rule,
the Philippines was afflicted with widespread corruption and vast
unemployment. There was widespread poverty, along with a few sectors
of great wealth.
Mr. Marcos was said to suffer kidney problems, and 1984 there was
speculation that he was close to death. A passionate golfer and
physical fitness buff who was proud of his physique, he disputed the
accounts.
With Mr. Marcos ailing, his long-powerful wife emerged as the
Government's main public figure, meeting high-ranking visitors as
though she were the chief of state. Her actual position was Minister
of Human Settlements, which gave her cabinet rank.
Over the years, the life that the Marcoses came to lead in their
riverside palace became regal indeed. When Pope John Paul II visited
the Philippines in 1981, Mr. Marcos had bronze medals struck depicting
himself and the Pope.
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos's early years were rather more austere. He
was born Sept. 11, 1917, in the town of Sarrat in a rice- and
tobacco-growing area in Ilocos Norte in northern Luzon. His father,
Mariano R. Marcos, was a politician and educator. His mother, the
former Josefa Edralin, was a teacher from a well-to-do landowning
family.
The Marcos family moved to Manila in 1925, and the future President
graduated from secondary school in 1934 and went on to study law on a
scholarship at the University of the Philippines.
While he was a student, he was convicted of the murder of a political
rival of his father, but the verdict was reversed by the Philippine
Supreme Court after the young man argued his own appeal.
He then became a trial lawyer in his father's Manila law firm. In
World War II, he was a much-decorated officer in both the Philippine
and United States Armies.
Question of Medals
The decorations that Mr. Marcos claimed to have earned for military
service against the Japanese became a campaign issue four decades
later, when Mrs. Aquino denounced what she called his ''false
medals.''
The Government's count of his war decorations ranged from 26 to 33.
When their validity was challenged by American and Philippine
journalists, his Government argued that documentation of his exploits
as a wounded army officer and guerrilla leader had been destroyed by
fire.
In 1946 and 1947, Mr. Marcos was special assistant to President Manuel
Roxas. He was a member of the Philippine House of Representatives from
1949 to 1959 and of the Senate from 1959 to 1966, serving as president
of the Senate from 1963 to 1965.
As President of the Philippines, Mr. Marcos ran the country jointly
with a disputatious two-party Congress until he imposed martial law.
He suspended Congress, declared himself absolute ruler and had a
constitutional convention draw up a charter that gave the Philippines
a Prime Minister as head of government. He then named himself Prime
Minister under the new Constitution as well as President under the
old.
Mr. Marcos remained Prime Minister from 1973 until 1981, when he
stepped down from that post and, while retaining the presidency, also
served as leader of the New Society Movement, his political party. He
was easily elected again as President, Early Support, Then Furor Early
in the martial law period, Mr. Marcos enjoyed widespread support, in
part because crimes of violence decreased. Other successes of his
presidency, over the years, included rural irrigation and
electrification projects and increased rice harvests.
Yet the boasts of Mr. Marcos and his supporters seemed to be drowned
out, in his final years, by the furor over the Aquino slaying, the
Communist insurgency and the clamor of his emboldened political foes.
In the months after the killing, he made concessions to his opponents
under pressure from the United States, which had provided hundreds of
millions of dollars in aid. That assistance had been important over
the years in buttressing his rule.
But by late 1984, there were signs that the Reagan Administration was
distancing itself from his Government somewhat. And Mr. Marcos also
had to contend with opposition from his country's Roman Catholic
Church.
Many Filipinos came to believe that Mr. Marcos, a shrewd political
tactician, had no hand in the killing of Mr. Aquino but that he was
involved in cover-up measures.
A civilian investigative panel issued a report in October 1984 naming
Gen. Fabian C. Ver, the armed forces Chief of Staff and a close friend
of Mr. Marcos, and two dozen others, mostly soldiers, as ''indictable
for the premeditated killing'' of Mr. Aquino and of Rolando Galman,
who was earlier said to have been the lone assassin killed by airport
guards. An indictment was handed up in February 1985.
Mr. Marcos asserted that the evidence backed the military's contention
that Mr. Galman had been hired by Communists and had acted on his own.
But some opposition politicians contended that Mr. Marcos had ordered
the slaying, while others accused the military and Mrs. Marcos.
In late 1985, when the court found the defendants in the Aquino murder
trial not guilty, the verdict was widely seen as a miscarriage of
justice.
While the Aquino controversy continued in the capital, the Communist
insurgency, which began in 1969, was making political as well as
military inroads around the country.
Mr. Marcos estimated that the insurgent regulars numbered 10,000 to
12,000 by early 1985. But the rebel organization, the New People's
Army, said it had around 20,000 armed fighters. And its popularity and
influence were growing.
As a result, by May 1985, many opposition figures had begun striking a
more nationalistic and anti-American note - partly in reaction to
leftists' charges that the Marcos Government was dictatorial and was
being sustained by United States aid.
His ties with Washington were of long standing. Early in his
presidency, Mr. Marcos was a strong defender of American involvement
in Vietnam, and he maintained close relations with Washington in the
years that followed.
Those relations soured somewhat under the Carter Administration, which
included the Philippines among the targets of its human-rights
campaign. But Vice President George Bush appeared to signal a
different tack in 1981 when he visited Manila and told Mr. Marcos:
''We love your adherence to democratic principles and to democratic
processes. We will not leave you in isolation.'' Mr. Bush said the
next day that he had been speaking generally of American allies in
Southeast Asia, but his remarks were associated in the public mind
with the Philippines and came to be quoted with ironic intent.
The Bases Factor
As criticism of the Marcos Government grew in the United States,
American officials let it be known that the Administration was
particularly worried that instability in the Philippines might impede
use of the two major American military bases there, Clark Air Base and
Subic Bay Naval Station. Accordingly, they indicated, the
Administration wanted to prepare to deal with a Philippine power
struggle after Mr. Marcos's rule.
By October 1984 the Reagan Administration had altered its attitude
toward Mr. Marcos, and was prodding him to relax his authoritarian
rule.
Mr. Marcos was evidently nettled by the American appraisals. Shaking
his fist, he declared in one speech, ''I am surprised why some people
would classify us with the Central and Latin American countries.''
''We don't want to appear to our Asian brothers as if we were the pet
dogs of any Western ally,'' he said, suggesting that his handling of
the Aquino assassination case was not meant just to satisfy
Washington.
Criticism from the Philippine business sector, having flared up after
the Aquino killing, continued, with many company executives urging
that the economic power of Mr. Marcos and his entourage be reduced to
permit decentralization and to bolster investor confidence.
After the assassination, the Philippine economy worsened so markedly
that the nation was not able to keep pace with the payments due on
loans from overseas. The country's foreign debt soared to more than
$25 billion by the beginning of 1985, and international lending
organizations and banks, ascribing the economic travail to cronyism
and heavy-handed Government control of the economy, pressed for
changes.
In the embittered political climate, Mr. Marcos found himself
confronted by Mrs. Aquino.
The widow of his leading foe became a rival candidate for President in
a special election that the confident Mr. Marcos, in a decisive
political misstep, called for February 1986. The date was 16 months
before the end of his six-year presidential term. The
Marcos-controlled National Assembly declared him the victor, on the
basis of a vote tally that was marked by pervasive violence and fraud
by his side.
Resentment simmered, and later that month, Juan Ponce Enrile, the
Defense Minister, and Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the army deputy chief of
staff, led an anti-Marcos military rebellion that was noteworthy for
its lack of bloodshed. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos turned out
into Manila's streets, forming a vast human wall to protect Mr.
Enrile, General Ramos and others who had barricaded themselves in a
military installation.
The human buffer made it impossible for the Marcos forces to strike at
the rebels without causing many civilian casualties, and it added to
the manifold pressures on Mr. Marcos to cease trying to rule.
Finally, after asking in vain for Reagan Administration help in
staying in power, he fled the Presidential Palace in the evening of
Feb. 25, accompanied by his family, and a United States Air Force
plane flew the Marcoses to Guam en route to Hawaii, where they took up
residence in Honolulu.
In the months after his ouster, details emerged about the enormous
wealth Mr. Marcos had amassed in his years in power.
Recovering the Plunder
A Manila commission, trying to regain what it called the concealed
Marcos fortune, took over 268 companies, in many industries ranging
from banking to mining to steel-making, by early 1987. Not long after
Mrs. Aquino took power, Philippine officials estimated that the
fortune built up by Mr. and Mrs. Marcos totaled $5 billion or more,
and the Aquino Government estimated that as much as $10 billion in
stolen wealth was involved. Mrs. Marcos was found to have left behind
1,060 pairs of shoes and slippers at the Presidential Palace, along
with 508 floor-length gowns.
As time went by, the Aquino Government filed several civil suits
before a Philippine court asking damages of as much as $100 billion
against Mr. Marcos, his relatives and ''cronies.''
In 1986, the Government filed suit in the Honolulu Federal District
Court to recover $100 million in assets that the Government charged
the Marcoses had stolen. New legal dcouments were filed on June 20 in
Los Angeles charging that the Marcoses stole $5 billion during the
presidential years. The suit has not come to trial and is still
pending.
Investigations were also carried out by American officials, and in
October 1988, Mr. Marcos, his wife and eight associates, including
Adnan M. Khashoggi, a Saudi businessman, were indicted by a Federal
grand jury in New York in a racketeering case. It included charges
that Mr. Marcos and the others had embezzled tens of millions of
dollars during his presidency.
On April 6 Federal prosecutors said Mr. Marcos had become too ill to
stand trial on the criminal charges pending in New York. But on June 9
they moved to guarantee claims against his fortune in the event of his
death, filing a civil suit against him and his wife in Federal
District Court in Manhattan.
Yet while Mr. Marcos remained of keen interest to investigators and
prosecutors, as his years of exile went by, he became less of a
political factor in the Philippines.
The mass support Mr. Marcos had once enjoyed mostly faded away, and
his remaining supporters had come to be seen as a minority in his
homeland. Indeed, even though his political legacy continued to
trouble the nation, Mr. Marcos came to be widely seen in the
Philippines as largely irrelevant.
He is survived by his wife, of Honolulu; a brother, Dr. Pacifico
Marcos, and a sister, Fortuna Barba, both of Manila; two daughters,
Maria Imelda Manotoc, who has been living in Morocco, and Irene
Araneta, who lives in Menlo Park, a suburb of San Francisco; an
adopted daughter, Aimee Marcos, of Honolulu; a son, Ferdinand, Jr.,
and five grandchildren.
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Photo: http://peoplepower.e-workers.de/images/macoy.jpg
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Marcos Dies In Bitter Exile In Honolulu At 72;
Deposed Philippine Ruler Had Kidney, Heart, Lung Ailments
FROM: The Los Angeles Times (September 29th 1989) ~
By Bob Secter, Staff Writerน and the Associated Press
Ferdinand E. Marcos, the crafty, controversial and ruthless former
Philippine ruler, died of kidney, lung and heart ailments Thursday in
Honolulu, where he had been in bitter and defiant exile for more than
3 1/2 years after fleeing a popular uprising and nearly a year after
his indictment on racketeering charges in this country. He was 72.
He had been hospitalized for nearly 10 months with a multitude of
ailments, and the fighting spirit that had enabled him to survive
years of scorn and degradation seemed to carry over into his last
physical struggle. For many weeks he had lingered near death before
losing his final battle.
Pacemaker Attached
Doctors, who had attached a pacemaker Wednesday, said lung and kidney
failure and a widespread infection contributed to the cardiac arrest
that was listed as the cause of death. The life-support equipment that
had sustained Marcos reportedly was not disconnected until after he
was pronounced dead.
Marcos died at 3:40 a.m. PDT. Shortly afterward, his son, Ferdinand
Jr., emerged from his father's room at St. Francis Medical Center and
announced that the senior Marcos had been taken to "a higher place."
"Perhaps friends and detractors alike (now) will look beyond the man
to see what he stood for -- his vision, his compassion and his total
love of country," the son said.
Roger Peyuan, a spokesman for Marcos' wife, Imelda, quoted her as
telling friends, "Father's not here anymore -- he's gone."
Peyuan added that Ferdinand Jr. had arrived from California just in
time to see his father alive one last time. As Imelda Marcos, her
sister and Ferdinand Jr. watched, Marcos was given cardiopulmonary
resuscitation but failed to respond, Peyuan said. The three remained
with him and recited a rosary.
Brilliant, vain and outrageously extravagant, Marcos transformed a
chaotic, American-style democracy into a virtual dictatorship and cult
of personality in a controversial public career that began and ended
with two of the most sensational killings in Philippine history.
Rose During American Rule
Marcos rose to prominence in the prewar days of American colonial rule
when, as a young law student, he represented himself and won an appeal
of his conviction on murder charges in the shooting death of his
father's chief political rival.
But as an aging and ailing national ruler, Marcos was unable to dispel
a widespread suspicion that his government was behind the killing of
Benigno S. Aquino Jr., the president's own political nemesis.
That 1983 assassination revitalized an opposition movement long
stifled by infighting and Marcos' increasingly heavy-handed tactics.
In another ironic twist, the uproar triggered by Aquino's death
eventually thrust his widow, Corazon, into the seat of power in the
strategic Southeast Asian archipelago.
She remains there today, struggling to revive an economy ravaged by
the mismanagement and theft of Marcos' cronies. At the same time, she
is trying to put down both right-wing coup attempts often linked to
Marcos loyalists and a Communist insurgency that grew in reaction to
the excesses of his rule.
Legacy of Indulgence
Underscoring his fall from grace and power, Marcos left a legacy far
different from the forceful, dynamic Asian visionary he claimed to be.
Instead, he probably will best be remembered as an exile stained by
federal charges that he looted the Philippine treasury to buy pricey
New York real estate and mocked by jokes about the thousands of shoes
and brassieres left behind in the Manila boudoir of his wife.
The U.S. indictments last October accused the Marcoses and eight of
their friends of pilfering hundreds of millions of dollars from their
country, but critics have long maintained that the couple's ill-gotten
jackpot actually totaled billions of dollars and was stashed in Swiss
bank accounts and other investments abroad.
A judge ruled that Marcos was too ill to stand trial.
In Washington, the Bush Administration said the President was
"saddened" to hear of the death of Marcos, but announced nonetheless
that it would block any attempt to return Marcos' body to the
Philippines for burial.
FAA Issues Rule
"The Federal Aviation Administration is issuing a rule which prevents
the operation of any aircraft or the initiation of any flight carrying
the remains of Mr. Marcos from the United States to the Philippines,"
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "And the rule applies
to all aircraft which might depart from the United States."
He said the ban was imposed to honor the wishes of the Aquino
government, which declared that a Marcos funeral or burial in that
country would not be conducive to "the tranquillity of the state and
the order of society."
The White House response to Marcos' death clearly reflected the
Administration's uneasiness with its role as host to the dictator in
exile. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater released the official
statement of condolences rather than Bush himself. And neither Bush,
who as vice president once praised Marcos during a Philippine visit,
nor Vice President Dan Quayle was expected to attend his funeral.
The five-sentence statement itself was conspicuously terse. "The
President and Mrs. Bush were saddened to hear of the death of former
President Marcos. They offer their condolences to Mrs. Marcos and the
members of her family.
"For over 20 years, Mr. Marcos was the leader of the Philippines, a
nation that has been and remains a staunch friend and ally of the
United States," it said. "Mr. Marcos agreed to leave the Philippines
at a critical juncture in his nation's history. His departure
permitted the peaceful transition to popular, democratic rule under
President Aquino."
Mark Weinberg, spokesman for Ronald and Nancy Reagan, read a one-line
statement from the former President on Marcos' death.
"Nancy and I are deeply saddened and extend our sympathy and prayers
to his family."
Asked if the Reagans plan to attend the funeral, Weinberg said, "No.
They have no plans to attend the funeral."
Marcos was his country's most celebrated World War II hero -- although
critics questioned the authenticity of some of his claimed exploits --
as well as its flashiest postwar lawyer, its longest-serving leader
and, for many years, arguably its most admired individual.
But that reservoir of good will had long since vanished at his death,
frittered away amid widespread charges of corruption, waste, military
abuses, nepotism and economic decay and election fraud.
A Wave of Nationalism
The growth in anti-Marcos sentiment that mushroomed after the Benigno
Aquino assassination also ushered in a wave of nationalism that
focused on ridding the nation of excessive American influence, which
Marcos represented to many. Even once-moderate opposition figures
increasingly began to question the value to the Philippines of
strategic U.S. military facilities, including Clark Air Base and Subic
Bay Naval Base.
Marcos granted great power and influence to his eccentric and
ostentatious wife, with whom he shared what critics snidely referred
to as a "conjugal dictatorship." Together, they did not just dominate
the Philippine political and social scene, they smothered it.
The two built huge mansions and memorials to themselves, affixed their
names to numerous parks, roads and public buildings, turned the
established broadcast and print media into little more than personal
publicity organs and installed friends and family in a wide range of
influential public and private positions.
In a nation that had never produced more than a one-term president
since it was granted independence from the United States in 1946,
Marcos served as a leader for more than two decades, from 1965 until
his exile in February, 1986. In a 1984 interview, he explained that he
felt the presidency was "God-given."
Supporters said widespread popularity was the secret to his longevity.
But opponents charged that he not only rigged his reelections but also
declared martial law and rewrote the constitution when the national
charter required an end to his rule after eight years.
Only a few years before his death, Marcos said he wanted most to be
remembered as a "political, social and economic reformer who saved the
country from anarchy." But his final years in office were marked by
growing civil unrest amid the most trying political and economic
crises in Philippine history.
Around the world, Marcos was best known as the showy strongman who
stripped his nation of American-style democratic traditions and whose
later years were blackened by the scandal involving Benigno Aquino's
death.
Indeed, whatever successes the Marcoses could claim always seemed to
be overshadowed in the headlines by their excesses.
For years, the fortunes and tragedies of the Marcos family were the
most talked-about soap opera in the Philippines. Meanwhile, Marcos
brought significant changes to the country's political and
administrative landscape -- not all of them for the better.
His iron rule, his penchant for squandering scarce government
resources on friends and family, his increasing reliance on military
strength to prop up his regime and his reluctance until late in his
career to establish a clear-cut succession for the presidency left a
legacy of fiscal and political confusion. That, in turn, helped
generate more support for the budding Communist insurgency movement.
Marcos' most serious failings may have been in his handling of the
economy. When he assumed the presidency, the Philippines was
considered the richest nation in Southeast Asia and one of the
wealthiest in the Orient. Today, it is one of the poorest
non-Communist countries in the booming Far East, with a neglected
agricultural base, little industry and the region's worst debt
problems, despite efforts by Aquino to turn the tide.
The controversial end to Marcos' presidency stood in stark contrast to
the initial phase, which began in 1965 when he defeated incumbent
President Diosdado Macapagal in national elections.
In his early years he was viewed as a reformer, eliminating thousands
of government jobs and cracking down on corrupt officials who had been
collaborating with criminals and smugglers. He is widely credited with
initiating sorely needed improvements in highway, sewer and other
long-neglected projects.
Under Marcos-initiated reforms, many peasants got their first chance
to own land, taking control of the small patches they had farmed for
wealthy absentee landlords who owned immense tracts.
As he consolidated his power, Marcos broke up the economic and
political stranglehold that a handful of established families had
managed to maintain over industry and government. But instead of
significantly broadening the base of wealth and political
participation in the country, Marcos simply replaced the old oligarchs
with new ones loyal to him.
To some extent, Marcos' behavior in showering favors on those close to
him was in payment for utang na loob, the debt of gratitude Filipinos
often feel they owe for loyalty and friendship. But tragically for
Marcos, it was those close to him who created his most serious and
embarrassing problems.
Imelda Marcos became a symbol of waste and extravagance as she
jet-setted around the world on shopping sprees and lavished public
money on controversial building projects. Marcos promoted his cousin
and boyhood pal, Fabian C. Ver, to the post of armed forces chief of
staff over more qualified officers, one of them Lt. Gen. Fidel V.
Ramos, who trained at West Point.
Ver's loyal control of the scandal-ridden military propped up Marcos'
rule, but the general's devotion helped trigger the series of crises
that ultimately brought about Marcos' downfall.
Ver was widely suspected of engineering Benigno Aquino's
assassination, and a majority of the panel that formally investigated
the killing implicated him in the plot. He denied the charge and was
later judged not guilty by a tribunal consisting of Marcos appointees.
But the acquittal touched off another spasm of anti-government
protests that combined with growing pressure for reform from the
Reagan Administration and led Marcos to call an early presidential
election to reaffirm the legitimacy of his grip on power. Many
Filipinos and outside observers thought Corazon Aquino won the
contest, but Marcos had himself declared the victor in a move that
brought opposition passions to the boiling point.
Favored His Cronies
Marcos' associates also helped ravage the nation's economy. By
favoring a few trusted friends with the bulk of government contracts
and investments, Marcos hoped to imitate Japan's formula for economic
growth by promoting a small knot of entrepreneurs whose success, in
turn, would lead to industrial maturity. But again, he was ill-served
as his cronies shipped their profits into safe havens overseas rather
than pour them into risky expansion projects at home.
"It was a cultural misreading of the Philippines," said Bernardo
Villegas, a respected Philippine economist. "His economic samurais
became robber barons instead."
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was born Sept. 11, 1917, at Sarrat in the
northeastern province of Ilocos Norte. His father, Mariano, belonged
to a small, breakaway Christian sect, but Marcos followed his mother
into the Roman Catholic Church, the religion of 85% of his countrymen.
Mariano Marcos had been a congressman in the native assembly of what
was then an American territory. But in 1935, as the younger Marcos was
studying law on a scholarship at the University of the Philippines,
his father was defeated in a National Assembly election.
Shot While Brushing Teeth
Three days after the voting, the new assemblyman-elect was brushing
his teeth in front of a bathroom window when he was shot and killed by
a .22-caliber bullet. Ferdinand Marcos was the only known crack shot
in the area and, four years later, he was convicted of the killing.
But the decision was overturned by the Philippines' highest court
after an appeal that Marcos argued himself.
The brilliance he displayed in the courtroom turned him into a
national hero, and his talent for debate cast him as one of the
champions that Filipinos hoped would free them from the American
dominance they had endured since the islands were seized after the
Spanish-American War of 1898.
The war record Marcos said he had amassed greatly enhanced his
political fortunes. He was said to have survived the infamous "death
march" from Bataan to Capas, the horrors of Camp O'Donnell, where
American and Filipino prisoners died at the rate of 300 a day, and,
later, eight days of Japanese torture in Manila.
After escaping the Japanese, Marcos fled to the northern Cordillera
Mountains and became prominent in the Filipino resistance, which had
180,000 members. Supporters said he helped coordinate rival bands of
guerrillas that passed military intelligence to the command of Gen.
Douglas A. MacArthur before the general returned to the islands with
his forces in 1944.
Marcos' war exploits were legend to many Filipinos in the north. "When
we were kids during the war, we honestly believed Marcos was
impervious to gunfire and could disappear in a puff of smoke,"
recalled Jose Laureta, an influential Manila lawyer. "He was looked
upon as a national hero."
But after MacArthur's troops retook the Philippines, American
investigators found many of Marcos' claims to be exaggerated and
rejected recommendations that he be granted high U.S. military honors.
The results of those inquiries, which also indicated that Marcos might
have traded black-market goods with the Japanese, remained buried in
the Pentagon's archives until the final days of his last election
campaign. Their release proved a major embarrassment to Marcos, who
defiantly defended his military record.
After the war, Marcos quickly became one of the newly independent
nation's most successful corporate lawyers, and he parlayed his
wartime fame, suspect even then, into the start of a budding political
career.
In 1949, he was first elected on the Liberal Party ticket as a
congressmen in the American-style lower house. He was reelected twice,
then won a Senate seat in 1959 and became president of the chamber in
1963. He championed land reform, trade unions and civil liberties, but
broke with his fellow Liberals when they failed to name him as their
presidential candidate for the 1965 election.
Beat Incumbent Macapagal
Marcos joined the opposition Nacionalistas, won their nomination and
then successfully took on incumbent President Diosdado Macapagal in a
vicious mudslinging contest in which the two candidates called each
other murderers and thieves and spent more than $8 million each.
As a young congressman, Marcos was considered one of the nation's most
eligible and sought-after bachelors until 1954, when he met former
beauty queen Imelda Romualdez. They were married after a whirlwind
romance of 11 days and, for a wedding present, Marcos gave his young
bride an 11-carat diamond ring -- one carat for each day of their
courtship. The couple had three children, including Ferdinand Jr.,
called "Bong Bong," and adopted another.
Together, their chemistry captured the imagination of their
countrymen, who thrilled in the fast-paced life style of the Marcoses,
the Kennedys of the Philippines.
Marcos was reelected in 1969, the first president to win a second
term, but his second four years grew increasingly rocky: Opponents
charged that he drained government coffers to finance his reelection,
the peso was devalued for the first time, a crime wave shook the
country, a Communist insurgency was bubbling and student activists
became increasingly combative.
In what proved to be the pivotal event of his political career, Marcos
declared martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, saying he needed draconian
powers to combat insurgents as well as growing chaos in the streets.
Thousands of political opponents were thrown in jail, chief among them
Benigno Aquino, who had been the odds-on favorite to succeed Marcos as
president.
Newspapers and broadcast stations critical of Marcos were temporarily
shut and then handed over to friends or relatives of the first family.
Local officials were fired and replaced with Marcos loyalists.
At the same time, the constitution was changed to allow Marcos to
continue in office indefinitely and to eliminate the checks and
balances inherent in the pre-martial law system of government. Marcos
not only was granted the power to make law by executive fiat but also
to order arrests and detention without trial. He called his new form
of government "constitutional authoritarianism."
For a time, martial law was welcomed by many Filipinos, who liked the
order it brought to the often-chaotic country. But it also ushered in
a new climate of fear and paranoia among a people known for their
fun-loving and casual manner. In 1974, for example, a prominent public
relations executive was jailed for two months for joking in a banquet
speech about Imelda Marcos' own presidential ambitions.
Many Filipinos thought Marcos was grooming his wife to succeed him.
She was handed a seat in Parliament and named governor of metropolitan
Manila. At the same time, she ran the Human Settlements Ministry, a
catch-all welfare, housing and development agency that commanded the
largest share of the national budget. She also served on a special
committee that for years was empowered to run the country if Marcos
died.
During the martial-law period, Marcos tripled the size of the military
and handed control of the armed forces to Ver and an "Ilocano Mafia"
of generals, many of whom quickly became rich.
But foot soldiers were poorly equipped and paid, and many sold their
weapons to the insurgents they were fighting or turned to crime to
support themselves in the field. Reports of military abuses against
civilians ballooned.
Persistent Critic
Marcos' authoritarianism also served to radicalize many Roman Catholic
priests and nuns who became active in anti-government activities.
Manila's outspoken archbishop, Cardinal Jaime L. Sin, became a
persistent critic of Marcos and had frequent run-ins with the
president.
Marcos finally lifted martial law in January, 1981, just before a
visit to the country by Pope John Paul II, but many Filipinos saw
little difference because the president retained his extraordinary
powers.
Although Marcos' relations with the Carter Administration were chilly
after the Philippines was accused of human rights violations, the
Reagan Administration at first embraced him warmly. Then-Vice
President George Bush visited Manila in 1981 and praised Marcos'
"adherence to democratic principles and processes," a statement that
rankled government critics. The next year Marcos was welcomed by
President Reagan during an official visit to the United States in
which Marcos brought along almost his entire Cabinet and a huge press
corps.
Marcos' bubble burst on Aug. 21, 1983, when Aquino was assassinated as
he returned from self-exile in the United States. Few Filipinos
believed the official explanation that a Communist assassin killed the
popular opposition leader, and the country was rocked by a growing
wave of anti-government protests. Meanwhile, new investment dried up
and wealthy Filipinos rushed to invest their savings overseas. The
economy collapsed.
The civil unrest and fiscal problems forced Marcos to grudgingly grant
concessions, chief among them the formation of a more orderly
succession mechanism and the eventual reinstitution of the office of
vice president.
Although he was feisty and pugnacious by nature, his attempts to
staunch the erosion of his authority were hampered by illness. A man
of few physical excesses, Marcos neither drank nor smoked and reveled
in his macho image as a fitness buff. Well into his 60s, the 5-foot,
6-inch leader golfed and water-skied regularly and sported the
physique of a much younger man.
But in his last years in office he suffered serious kidney problems
aggravated by a degenerative disease that attacked his body's immune
system. Aides fabricated elaborate cover stories to mask his
illnesses, and government publicists often distributed old pictures
and videotapes of Marcos at work to counter rumors that he was
bedridden.
Several times illness forced him to spend weeks in isolation in the
specially sterilized surroundings of the presidential palace to
protect his increasingly frail body from contaminants it had trouble
fighting off.
But it was his political ills, not his physical ones, that finally
were the end of the Marcos government's era. Clearly surprised by the
depth of support for Corazon Aquino, Marcos' supporters apparently
rigged the vote counting in the February, 1986, election to give him a
slim victory.
Aquino Would Not Give Up
Aquino refused to give up, however, and launched a civil disobedience
campaign designed to bring Marcos down. Meanwhile, the Reagan
Administration, embarrassed by Marcos' brazen electoral conduct and
under pressure from Congress, denounced the fraud and sent
increasingly strong signals that it believed Aquino had won.
That emboldened Marcos' opponents and led Ramos, Defense Minister Juan
Ponce Enrile and other stalwarts of the ruling hierarchy to defect.
Blustery and ever-defiant, Marcos clung desperately to power in his
ornate palace, promising never to leave office and threatening bloody
reprisals. But even Reagan, long reluctant to undercut Marcos, called
on him to quit. The end had arrived.
As his military support rapidly and visibly evaporated, Marcos staged
an emotional, tightly guarded swearing-in ceremony on Feb. 25, 1986,
for what he asserted was his new, justly won term in office.
But hours later, a U.S. transport airlifted Marcos, most of his family
and many supporters to Hawaii, where the fallen leader rented an
exclusive villa near Honolulu and issued frequent proclamations vowing
to return to Manila.
His opponents, who had complained for years of the couple's
wastefulness, were astonished at the extent of that extravagance when
they opened the presidential palace and got their first glimpse into
the Marcoses' private living quarters, filled with antiques, rare
artworks and furnishings, and closets filled with clothes and
thousands of pairs of shoes. The kidney dialysis machine Marcos always
denied having also was found.
In Hawaii, Marcos kept up regular telephone contact with supporters in
the Philippines and often was heard on anti-Aquino radio stations in
the country. Both officials in the United States and the Philippines
feared that Marcos would try to destabilize the Aquino government, and
he is believed to have been behind at least some of several foiled
coup attempts against the new leader.
As his exile dragged on, Marcos granted interviews in which he
admitted growing depression over his fortunes. Eventually he stopped
asserting that he was the true Philippine leader and even publicly
acknowledged the legitimacy of Aquino's rule.
But Aquino, fearing repercussions if Marcos returned and still
resentful over his suspected role in Benigno Aquino's death,
repeatedly barred Marcos from returning home -- even to attend the
funeral of his 95-year-old mother, Josefa, who died in May, 1988.
Then last October, a federal grand jury in New York issued a 79-page
indictment against both Marcoses and several associates, including
Saudi Arabian financier Adnan Khashoggi, who was extradited to the
United States earlier this year. The indictment charged that the
Marcoses, when still in power, diverted Philippine government funds to
buy millions of dollars' worth of U.S. real estate, including some of
the most fashionable office towers in Manhattan.
The Marcoses, charged one FBI official, had turned the "Philippine
treasury into their personal treasure."
Marcos maintained his innocence to the end and said, further, that he
was too ill to endure the 5,000-mile flight from Hawaii to New York to
face arraignment on the charges. But a court-appointed physician
examined him and said that, although he was not in the best of health,
the former Philippine ruler appeared to be faking most of his aches
and pains and was well enough to make the trip.
Still, Marcos resisted, and the court agreed to separate his case from
the others. Underscoring how low his credibility had sunk, some
Philippine officials accused him of lying again when he entered the
hospital for what proved to be the last time.
Secter, now based in Chicago, was a Times correspondent in Southeast
Asia from 1982 to 1985.
MARCOS: A CHRONOLOGY
1949:
Elected to Philippine House of Representatives.
1954:
Married Imelda Romualdez.
1959:
Elected to the Senate.
1965:
Elected Philippine president.
1969:
Won second term as president in elections tainted by fraud.
1972:
Signed martial law decree, abolished Congress, shut down news
media and jailed thousands of politicians, journalists, students and
other critics.
1973:
Held national referendum to approve his stay in office indefinitely.
1981:
Lifted martial law but retained power to make laws by decree and
jail people indefinitely without charges. Later in year, reelected for
six years in ballot boycotted by political opponents.
1983:
Benigno S. Aquino Jr., a Marcos foe, was assassinated at Manila
airport as he returned from exile. The killing prompted world protest
and an explosion of popular outrage at home.
1986:
Feb. 15. The National Assembly declared Marcos the winner of
Feb. 7 presidential election over Aquino's widow, Corazon. The
opposition charged widespread fraud.
Feb. 22. Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Lt. Gen. Fidel V.
Ramos, joined by about 250 soldiers, announced they were breaking with
Marcos to declare Aquino the election winner.
Feb. 25. Marcos took the oath of office and fled Manila. Mobs stormed
Malacanang Palace.
Feb. 26. Marcoses left for exile in Hawaii.
1988:
Marcoses were indicted by federal grand jury in New York on
racketeering charges related to alleged corruption in Philippines.
1989:
Jan 15. Marcos entered hospital with heart, kidney and
respiratory ailments.
May 18. Marcos suffered kidney, cardiac and pulmonary failure.
Sept. 28. Marcos died at age 72 of cardiac arrest.
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Photo: http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1801/18010592.jpg (w/Imelda)
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นSecter, now based in Chicago, was a Times correspondent in Southeast
Asia from 1982 to 1985.