Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sixth President of the Philippine Republic (1965 1986) This nation can be great again.

Scholar, soldier, lawyer and politician who served as President of the Philippines from 1966 to 1986, Ferdinand E. Marcos was born on September 11, 1917 in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, the eldest son of Mariano Marcos and Josefa Edralin, both teachers. He had to study in several elementary schools as his parents assignments changed constantly. From 1923 to 1929, he attended the Sarrat Central School, then the Shamrock Elementary School in Laoag and, finally, the Ermita Elementary School in Manila. In 1930, the young Ferdinand entered the University of the Phillipines High School and went onto the College of Law. At the State University, he stood out in both curricular and extra-curricular activities. He was number one not only in academics but also in athletics. He was skilled in boxing, and wrestling. Not only that he was also a battalion commander in ROTC and became a National Champion in small bore-riffle tilt. He was the first recipient of the Gen. Douglas McArthur gold medal for, Military Service Proficiency. Marcos was also a student activist leading demonstrations against the University and even the Commonwealth officialdom. Since Marcos was also a scholar, debater and orator, he won the gold medal for oratory, the University president gold medal for attaining the highest scholastic average in college and awarded as the Most Famous Young Man in the Philippines by Quezon. In 1935, Assemblyman Julio Nalundasan, a political rival of his father, was shot dead. Suspicion for the crime fell on the Marcoses. Ferdinand Marcos was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to murder, was tried, and found guilty in 1939. He argued his case on appeal to the Supreme Court, luckily winning an acquittal a year later. At the UP College of Law, he joined the Upsilon Sigma Phi Fraternity, which specialized in political heckling of Manuel Quezons Commonwealth government. In the summer of 1939, he received his bachelor of law degree, cum laude. He would have been class valedictorian and magna cum laude had not imprisonment for the Nalundasan murder case prevented him from attending several weeks of classes. He reviewed for the bar examination while in prison. He bailed himself out in order to take the examination, where he emerged topnotcher in November of the same year. He became a trial lawyer in Manila. During World War II, he served as an officer in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Captured by the Japanese, he survived the Death March from Bataan to Capas, Tarlac, and escaped. His subsequent claims of being an important leader in the Filipino guerilla resistance movement was a central factor in his later political success. And at the age of 37, he married Imelda Romualdez, a beauty queen from Romuldez Clan of Leyte.

Marcos was a technical assistant to President Manuel Roxas (1946-47); member of the House of Representatives (1949-59); member of the Senate (1959-65); and Senate President (1963-65). In 1965, Marcos, who had been a prominent member of the Liberal Party founded by Roxas, broke with it after failing to get the partys nomination for President. He then ran as the Nacionalista Party candidate for President against the LPs standard bearer, reelectionist President Diosdado Macapagal. Marcos won and was inaugurated as President on December 30, 1965. In 1969, he was reelected, the first Philippine president to serve a second term. During his first term, he made progress in agriculture, industry and education. However, his administration was troubled by increasing student demonstrations and violent urban guerilla activities. On September 21, 1972, Marcos imposed martial law. Holding that communists and other subversive forces had precipitated the crisis, he acted swiftly. He jailed opposition politicians and made the armed forces an arm of the regime. Apart from political leaders, notably Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., whom he had arrested and held in detention for almost eight years, Marcos also met some opposition from church leaders and others. In the provinces, the New Peoples Army and Muslim separatists undertook guerilla activities intended to bring down the central government. In 1973, Marcos promulgated a new constitution that established a parliamentary government, with him as Prime Minister. He announced the end of martial law on January 17, 1981. In April, various constitutional changes were approved by plebiscite, resulting in the reversion of the government to the presidential system. Marcos won election for the new post of President, but against only one token opposition, on June 16. He began a new six-year term as President on June 30, 1981. Marcos wife Imelda Romualdez, a former beauty queen, became a powerful figure in her own right after her husband instituted martial law in 1972. She held the posts of governor of Metropolitan Manila (1975-1986) and minister of Human settlements and Ecology (1979-1986). In 1983, Marcos health was beginning to fail, and opposition to his rule was growing. Hoping to present an alternative to both Marcos and the increasingly powerful New Peoples Army, Senator Aquino, after three years of exile in Boston, Massachusetts, returned to Manila on August 21, 1983 only to be shot dead as he stepped off the plane. An independent commission, the Agrava Fact-Finding Board, appointed by Marcos, concluded in 1984 that highranking military officials were responsible for Aquinos assassination. To reassert his mandate, Marcos called for a so-called snap presidential election to be held in February 1986. But a formidable political opponent soon emerged in Aquinos widow, Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, who became the presidential candidate of the united opposition. It was widely asserted that Marcos managed to defeat Aquino and retain the presidency in the election of February 7, 1986 through massive voting frauds on the part of his supporters. Widely discredited abroad by his dubious electoral victory, Marcos held fast to his presidency as the military split between supporters of his and of Aquinos legitimate right to the presidency, as dramatized by the now historic four-day People Power revolution at EDSA. A tense standoff that ensued between the two sides ended only when Marcos left the country post-hastes on February 25, 1986 and went into exile in Hawaii. Marcos died of cardiac arrest on September 28, 1989 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He left behind his wife, Imelda and their three children: Maria Imelda Josefa Trinidad (Imee), Ferdinand, Jr. (Bongbong), and Irene Victoria.

During the first term of President Ferdinand Marcos, he listed the following to be the achievements during his administration; Increased rice and corn production to the point of self-sufficiency with the initiation of the Green Revolution and the introduction of miracle rice. The construction of roads and bridges, more than those built under all his predecessors combined, including a substantial portion of the Philippine-Japan Friendship Highway that would link Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The construction of more school houses than under any preceding administration. The revival of intellectual renaissance through the First Ladys patronage and involvement in the arts. The rehabilitation of irrigation systems; the intensification of the cooperative movement, and the vigorous implementation of land reform.

There were, however, still many problems which confronted the Marcos administration especially during the middle period of his second presidential term, after his reelection in 1969. These problems included,

The worsening of peace and order situation The rising prices of commodities The increasing unemployment The spread of squatters and housing problems The perennial school crisis The overstaying Chinese The integration of the so-called cultural minorities The question of the American military bases The Sabah question

All these problems taken together and the danger of an outbreak of rebellion, prompted President Marcos to declare martial law in the Philippines. References: Cortez, Rosario ed. Philippine Presidents: 100 Years. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1999. Garcia, Ludia. Mga Pangulo ng Pilipinas. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, 1994. Paterson, James. America's boy :the Marcoses and the Philippines . Manila: Anvil Publishing, 1998. Tatad, Francisco. Marcos of the Philippines. Manila: Department of Public Information, 1975. Velasco, Rheno A. The Presidents Republic of the Philippines: Biographies and Pictures. Loacan Publishing House, 1996.