Marcos and martial law
President Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law, closes Congress and the press, and rules for fourteen years; tens of thousands are jailed and tortured, thousands killed, and the Marcos family amasses billions.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International (2018)
- Final list of eligible claimants under Republic Act No. 10368 — Human Rights Victims' Claims Board (2018)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Ferdinand Marcos, a brilliant and ambitious lawyer from Ilocos Norte, was elected president in 1965 and, in 1969, became the first president re-elected under the post-war constitution. His second term was turbulent: student protests in the “First Quarter Storm” of 1970, a new communist insurgency by the New People’s Army, a Muslim rebellion brewing in Mindanao, and a constitution that barred him from a third term.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
The declaration
In September 1972, citing communist subversion and a string of bombings, Marcos signed Proclamation 1081, dated 21 September, and announced martial law on television two days later. Congress was padlocked, newspapers and broadcasters shut down, and opposition leaders, among them Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., arrested. A new constitution, ratified through managed “citizens’ assemblies”, let Marcos rule by decree.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Repression
Amnesty International has estimated that between 1972 and 1981, some 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 tortured and over 3,200 killed.
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International (2018)
- Final list of eligible claimants under Republic Act No. 10368 — Human Rights Victims' Claims Board (2018)
The “conjugal dictatorship”
Marcos and his wife Imelda, governor of Metro Manila and a minister, built monumental projects, the Cultural Center of the Philippines among them, and handed key industries to friends, the “cronies”. Foreign debt soared. Philippine courts and the Swiss authorities later found that the family had amassed huge hidden wealth; estimates of the total run into the billions of dollars, and the government’s recovery commission has spent decades pursuing it.
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
The end
Martial law was formally lifted in 1981, but Marcos kept his powers. On 21 August 1983, Ninoy Aquino, returning from exile in the United States, was shot dead on the tarmac at Manila airport. His death turned private anger into a mass movement that ended in the People Power revolt of February 1986.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Martial law was a dictatorship that tortured, disappeared and killed opponents, plundered the economy and left the country deep in debt. The state itself, through a 2013 law, recognised the victims and paid reparations from recovered Marcos wealth.
- Philippines: statement on the anniversary of martial law (ASA 35/9139/2018) — Amnesty International (2018)
- Final list of eligible claimants under Republic Act No. 10368 — Human Rights Victims' Claims Board (2018)
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
Marcos restored order in a country beset by communist insurgency, crime and oligarchs, and built roads, hospitals, cultural centres and power plants. Many supporters, especially in the Ilocos region, remember the era as disciplined and prosperous, and see the dictatorship story as exaggerated by the Aquino camp.
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
Why it matters today
Martial law is the most fiercely contested memory in the Philippines. For survivors and many historians it was a dark dictatorship; for a large number of Filipinos, especially younger ones raised on social media, it is remembered as a "golden age" of order and building. The election of Marcos's son as president in 2022 made the argument personal and political.