Former
Philippines Senate President Ferdinand Marcos is inaugurated president
of the Southeast Asian archipelago nation. Marcos' regime would span 20
years and become increasingly authoritarian and corrupt.
Ferdinand
Marcos was a law student in the late 1930's when he was tried for the
assassination of a political opponent of his politician father.
Convicted in 1939, he personally appealed the case before the Philippine
Supreme Court and won an acquittal. During the Japanese occupation in
World War II, he allegedly served as leader of the Filipino resistance
movement, but U.S. government records indicate he played little role in
anti-Japanese activities.
In
1949, he was elected to the Philippines House of Representatives,
thanks in large part to his fabricated wartime record. In 1959, he moved
up to the Senate and from 1963 to 1965 served as Senate president. In
1965, he broke with the Liberal Party after failing to win his party's
presidential nomination and ran as the candidate of the Nationalist
Party. After a bitter and decisive campaign, he was elected president.
In 1969, he was reelected.
Marcos'
second term was marked by increasing civil strife and violence by
leftist insurgents. In 1972, following a series of bombings in Manila,
he warned of an imminent communist takeover and declared martial law. In
1973, he assumed dictatorship powers under a new constitution. Marcos
used the military to suppress subversive elements but also arrested and
jailed his mainstream political opponents. His anti-communist activities
won him enthusiastic support from the U.S. government, but his regime
was marked by misuse of foreign aid, repression, and political murders.
His beauty-queen wife, Imelda Marcos, was appointed to important
political posts and lived a famously extravagant lifestyle that included
a massive wardrobe featuring thousands of pairs of shoes.
In
1981, Marcos was dubiously reelected president. In rural areas,
insurgency by communists and Muslim separatists grew. In 1983, Marcos'
old political opponent Benigno Aquino, Jr., returned from exile and was
assassinated by military agents of Marcos as soon as he stepped off the
plane. The political murder touched off widespread anti-Marcos protests,
and in 1986 he agreed to hold a new presidential election.
Aquino's
widow, Corazon Aquino, ran against Marcos, and on February 7, 1986, the
election was held. Marcos was declared victorious, but independent
observers charged the regime with widespread electoral fraud. Aquino's
followers proclaimed her president, and much of the military defected to
her side as massive anti-Marcos demonstrations were held. On February
25, Marcos, his wife, and their entourage were airlifted from the
presidential palace in Manila by U.S. helicopters and fled to Hawaii.
After
substantial evidence of Marcos' corruption emerged, including the
looting of billions of dollars from the Philippine economy, Marcos and
his wife were indicted by the U.S. government on embezzlement charges.
After Ferdinand Marcos' death in 1989, Imelda was cleared of the
charges, and she was allowed to return to the Philippines in 1991, where
she unsuccessfully ran for the presidency the following year. In 1993,
Imelda Marcos was convicted of corruption by a Philippine court, but she
avoided serving her 12-year prison sentence. In 1995, she was elected
to the House of Representatives. In 1998, she unsuccessfully ran for
president again and subsequently retired from political life.
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