Marcos Declares Martial Law in the Philippines
Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on 21 September 1972 and ruled by decree for nine years. He was serving a second term as president and was constitutionally barred from a third. The declaration solved that, and it was justified by a communist insurgency, a Muslim rebellion in the south, and a wave of bombings — some of which his own government had staged, including an ambush on the defence secretary Juan Ponce Enrile that Enrile later admitted was faked. Congress was padlocked, the constitution rewritten, opposition politicians arrested, newspapers and broadcasters closed or transferred to associates, and the writ of habeas corpus suspended. An official commission later documented over 3,200 killed, 34,000 tortured and 70,000 detained. The economic model was borrowing. External debt rose from about $600 million in 1965 to $28 billion, funding infrastructure, showpiece projects and monopolies in sugar and coconut granted to friends — a system that gave the language the term crony capitalism. Estimates of what Marcos and Imelda took range from $5 billion to $10 billion. He lifted martial law formally in 1981 while keeping the decree powers. Benigno Aquino, his principal opponent, was shot on the airport tarmac on returning from exile in August 1983, and the funeral drew perhaps two million people. Marcos called a snap election in 1986, claimed to have won it, and was removed within days by the People Power demonstrations on EDSA when the army and the church went over to Corazon Aquino. He died in Hawaii in 1989.
- Year: 1972 CE
- Category: Political
