AMERICAN JAPANESE OCCUPATION DURING MARCOS REGIME

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.                                   

JAPANESE SOLDIERS

FILIPINO AMERICAN

JAPANESE SOLDIERS

SUMMARY/ OPINION on MARCOS REGIME

Ferdinand Marcos was an intelectual, capable of initiating unimaginable ideals for himself and for his country. He served in the military and assembled medals of prestige and honor. For a time Ferdinand was sentenced imprisonment, but this "mishap" proved Ferdinand to be resilient image, he studied while he was in prison and even topped the bar exams; in the future aquitted himself in court through his own defense; who would then know that the core of Martial Law rooted in the blood of the Marcos's. Our president Joseph Estrada, was a former movie actor, who portrayed roles of heroism for the poor. Ferdinand and Erap have different origins; Macoy being a soldier and Erap as an actor; however the governance of both presidents had similarities in some ways.

Before Martial Law, Ferdinand's two years of service to the Filipinos was fairly proficient, infrastractures, which still stands today, was built during those early terms of Ferdinand Marcos. The Marcos regime oversaw the potentials of inflation; they monopolized every possible scene in the industry, placing their cronies and relatives to the advantage and under the protection of the government. The autocratic style and power of Marcos, coupled with the first lady, Imelda Romualdez seemed ceaseless, but the spirit of nationalism was beginning to act, mass rallies were getting into place, and the number of activists grew. Today, the strength of nationalism is being tested once more. Economic and political crisis has sprung again, and the question of another Martial law is being raised. Martial law was heed upon, with the consent of the U.S., there was a new society envisioned by Ferdinand, he saw this as an aperture for a change. Ferdinand's political oppositions and people who posed as a threat to the administration was either exiled or imprisoned, again an add-on to the strength of the Regime.

The Senate president and Nationalist Party candidate. Rapid economic development created by the American military buildup in Vietnam and ambitious public-works projects, financed by foreign loans, brought prosperity during Marcos’s first term. He was easily reelected in 1969, making him the first Philippine president to win a second term. The Marcos government soon faced several challenges on the domestic front, however. Government debt led to lackluster economic growth, while criticism increased over the dominant U.S. economic position in the Philippines. Many Filipinos actively opposed the continued presence of the U.S. military bases and Marcos’s support for United States policy in Vietnam. In addition, by the early 1970s two separate forces were waging guerrilla war on the government: the New People’s Army (NPA), the militant wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that included former Huks, and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a Muslim separatist movement based in the southern islands. 
 

Meanwhile, government and opposition political leaders agreed to draft a new constitution to replace the American-authored constitution of 1935. That constitution limited the president to two terms. The delegates in charge of drafting the new constitution never finished their work, however, and the 1973 presidential elections never took place. Marcos, citing the need for national security, declared martial law on September 21, 1972. Congress was dissolved, opposition leaders arrested, and strict censorship imposed. A new constitution was promulgated in January 1973, but transitional provisions attached to it gave Marcos continued absolute power, and elections were indefinitely postponed. Marcos ruled by decree.

The United States continued providing military and economic aid to the Philippine government. The country’s continued borrowing and eventual inability to repay its foreign debts led to a severe economic recession in the mid-1980s. Meanwhile, monopolies were established in most sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, media, construction, financial services, and agriculture. Marcos and his wife, Imelda, and their closest associates and relatives controlled these monopolies through a system known as crony capitalism. 

Marcos ended martial law in 1981, but he retained sweeping emergency powers. Most opposition groups boycotted the elections held in June of that year, and Marcos won another six-year term as president. In 1983 the widely popular opposition leader Benigno Aquino was assassinated upon his return from years in exile. The political archrival of Marcos, he was one of the first opposition leaders to be arrested after the declaration of martial law.

The assassination led to mass demonstrations in Manila and revitalized the political opposition. For the first time the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church openly opposed the Marcos regime. Regular strikes and demonstrations demanded Marcos’s resignation. Legislative elections were held in 1984 and, despite a boycott by some opposition groups and widespread government vote rigging, opposition parties registered large gains. Meanwhile, a commission concluded that Aquino’s murder was the result of a military conspiracy. However, all 25 defendants were summarily acquitted in 1985.

 When the Marcos-dominated National Assembly proclaimed Marcos the winner, Cardinal Jaime Sin and key military leaders (including Minister of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile and acting Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Lieutenant General Fidel V. Ramos) rallied around the apparent majority vote winner, Aquino’s widow, Corazon Cojuango Aquino. The People Power Movement—a popular uprising of priests, nuns, ordinary citizens, and children, supported by defecting military units—ousted Marcos on the day of his inauguration (February 25, 1986) and brought Aquino to power in an almost bloodless revolution.