Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. From 1972 to 1981, Marcos ruled the Philippines under martial law, embracing a policy of "constitutional authoritarianism." Following the lifting of martial law in 1981, a wide-ranging economic crisis, and the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, Marcos was deposed in 1986 by the People Power Revolution and was succeeded as president by Aquino's widow, Corazon Aquino. He was also the father of Bongbong Marcos, the incumbent president of the Philippines since 2022.
Marcos was born in Ilocos Norte in 1917. His father, Mariano Marcos, was a lawyer and politician who was later executed by guerillas for collaboration with the Japanese Army during World War II. In 1940, Marcos and his father were convicted of assassinating a political rival, Julio Nalundasan, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. Marcos joined the United States Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and fought the Japanese, who held him as a prisoner of war in 1942. After the war, he practiced law and was elected to represent Ilocos Norte in the Philippines House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959. He was elected to the Senate of the Philippines from 1959 to 1965, and served as Senate president from 1963 to 1965. He advanced his political career by exaggerating his military record, fraudulently including claims that he was "the most decorated war hero in the Philippines."
In 1965, Marcos was elected to his first term as president; he was re-elected in 1969. His initial policies included massive infrastructure development and construction, which made him popular but were funded by foreign lending. During his second term, debt and inflation crises and growing Philippine involvement in the Vietnam War triggered domestic social unrest. In 1972, Marcos declared martial law, ruling the country as a dictator until 1981. His rule was ratified through a 1973 plebiscite administered and overseen by the military. During this period, the constitution was revised to empower Marcos, and media outlets and opposition politicians were silenced. The Marcos regime used violence to suppress political opposition, including Muslims and suspected communists, whom he declared a threat to the Philippines. He referred to his ideology during this period as the "movement for a new society" and founded the political party Kilusang Bagong Lipunan to advance his ideas.
After the formal end of martial law in 1981, Marcos was elected to a third term. His popularity suffered in 1983, however, due to an economic collapse and the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, leader-in-exile of the opposition. Disapproval manifested in the resurgence of the political opposition in the 1984 parliamentary elections. Subsequent investigative reporting on his family's extensive overseas financial holdings and false war records led Marcos to call snap elections in 1986. He was challenged by Aquino's widow, Corazon Aquino. Although official results declared Marcos the victor, allegations of mass electoral fraud, political turmoil, and human rights abuses led to the People Power Revolution of February 1986, which ultimately removed him from power after two decades. On advice from United States president Ronald Reagan, the Marcos family fled to Hawaii, where he died in 1989.
Marcos remains a controversial figure in the Philippines, with his period of rule widely condemned as a kleptocracy and infamous for corruption, extravagance, and brutality. His wife, Imelda Marcos, became infamous in her own right for the excesses that characterized their "conjugal dictatorship", coining the term Imeldific, and the family allegedly stole as much as $10 billion from the Central Bank of the Philippines during his rule. Despite his removal from office and death in exile, many members of the Marcos regime remained in politics, including Fidel Ramos, who succeeded Aquino as president in 1992. His children, Imee and Bongbong Marcos, remain active in Philippine politics, with Bongbong serving as president since 2022. They have denied accusations of human rights violations by their parents.
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos was born in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, on September 11, 1917. His father, Mariano Marcos (1897–1945), was a lawyer who represented Ilocos Norte in the House of Representatives of the Philippines from 1925 to 1931. His mother, Josefa Edralin Marcos (1893–1988), was a schoolteacher. Marcos was of Chinese mestizo descendant. He later claimed to be descended from revolutionary hero Antonio Luna, a claim since debunked by genealogist Mona Magno-Veluz. Marcos also claimed descent from Limahong (Chinese: 林阿鳳), a 16th-century pirate who used to raid the coasts of the South China Sea.
From 1923 to 1929, Marcos attended Sarrat Elementary School, Shamrock Elementary School (in Laoag), and Ermita Elementary School (in Manila). He received his secondary education at University of the Philippines High School and attended University of the Philippines Manila, studying liberal arts before studying law at University of the Philippines College of Law. At the College of Law, he joined Upsilon Sigma Phi, where he first met many of his future colleagues and critics. He excelled in his studies and in extracurricular activities, joining the university's swimming, boxing, wrestling, and rifle teams. He was a national rifle champion and an accomplished orator, debater, and writer for the student newspaper. Marcos served as a battalion commander in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and was commissioned as a third lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary Reserve.
In 1939, Marcos took the bar exam; he was a top scorer with a score of 92.35 percent and graduated cum laude. He was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu and the Phi Kappa Phi international honor societies. Marcos received an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) (honoris causa) degree in 1967 from Central Philippine University.
Assassination of Julio Nalundasan
In 1934, Mariano Marcos lost his campaign for re-election to the House of Representatives to Julio Nalundasan. Mariano Marcos challenged Nalundasan again in the 1935 election but was defeated. On the day after the election, September 21, 1935, Nalundasan was killed by a single rifle shot at his home in Batac. In December 1938, two witnesses accused Ferdinand Marcos, Mariano, and Ferdinand's uncles Pio Marcos and Quirino Lizardo of conspiring to assassinate Nalundasan. At the time, Ferdinand was still studying law and a national champion as a member of the university rifle team. On the night of the assassination, Ferdinand's rifle was in its rack in the ROTC armory. However, the rifle of team captain Teodoro Kalaw was missing, and Ferdinand had access to the armory. A National Bureau of Investigation concluded that Kalaw's rifle was the murder weapon. Ferdinand and his uncle Quirino were convicted of murder, and Ferdinand was sentenced to 10 to 17 years in prison.
He appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court of the Philippines. The Supreme Court overturned the lower court's decision on October 22, 1940, acquitting both men of all charges except contempt of court. Justice Jose P. Laurel, who wrote the majority decision, persuaded his colleagues to acquit Marcos. Laurel himself had been convicted of frustrated murder as a young man after he almost killed a rival during a youthful brawl but was acquitted after his own appeal to the Supreme Court.
Military service and early political career
Marcos's military service record, and his alleged exaggeration of it, have been the source of controversy and confusion. Near the end of his presidency, researchers found that most stories about Marcos's military service were inaccurate or untrue.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese invasion of the Philippines in December 1941, Marcos was called into service in the United States Army. He fought with the United States until April 1942, when he was taken prisoner by the Japanese at the Battle of Bataan. Official Army records show that he was assigned to the intelligence service in the 21st Infantry Division under Mateo M. Capinpin. Despite his later claims of heroism at the battle, there are no contemporaneous records of any awards or decorations received by Marcos, and his commander and other officers did not corroborate his claims. However, official dispatches reference Marcos bringing a wounded officer to the rear and note that the 21st Infantry Division did not receive sufficient recognition for their actions at Bataan.