Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are wrestling
with a figure who is, well, massive is probably
the only word that really fits. Massive in influence,
massive in ambition, and massive in the sheer
scale of the controversy he left behind. We're
talking, of course, about Ferdinand Marcos. The
man who ruled the Philippines for two decades.
And looking at the stack of sources we have in
front of us today, I mean, we've got biographical
records, World Bank economic data, Amnesty International
reports, legal documents on ill -gotten wealth.
It feels like we're looking at two completely
different people. That is the central tension
of his life, isn't it? On one side, you have
the Malikas narrative, the strongman. the brilliant
legal mind, the bar top notcher, the decorated
war hero. And on the other side, the dictator,
the kleptocrat, the human rights violator, the
man who, you know, arguably plunged a nation
into chaos. And that's our mission for this deep
dive. We aren't just here to recite dates or
give a dry history lesson. We want to move past
the simple labels of hero or tyrant. We want
to actually understand the mechanics of his rise.
How did he structure a 20 -year rule? How did
he legally and psychologically justify it? And
maybe most importantly, what is the specific
tangible legacy he left behind? Exactly. We need
to look at the machinery. Because, you know,
you don't stay in power for 20 years just by
luck. You do it through a complex system of patronage,
of military control and and some very clever
economic manipulation. And the stories are just.
They're wild. We've got assassinations. We have
fake war medals. We've got crates of gold bullion
literally being flown to Hawaii. We do. And we
have to ground all of that in the geopolitical
reality of the time. The Cold War was everything.
Right. You have the American reliance on military
bases and, of course, the economic fallout that,
well, you could argue the Philippines is still
paying for today. So let's unpack this. Let's
start at the very beginning, the origin story.
Because it seems the legend of Ferdinand Marcos
started way, way before he ever set foot in the
presidential palace. Oh, absolutely. He was born
in 1917 in Ilcos Norte, which is a province in
the northern Philippines. His father, Mariano
Marcos, was a lawyer and a politician. And his
mother was a schoolteacher. And right from the
get -go, Ferdinand was marketed as a prodigy.
And our sources seem to back that up, right?
This wasn't just, you know, proud parents bragging.
He was actually academically dominant. He was.
He went to the University of the Philippines
College of Law, the premier law school in the
country. And he wasn't just a bookworm. Yeah.
He was on the swimming team, the boxing team,
the wrestling team. He was a champion debater.
And then when he took the bar examinations in
1939, he didn't just pass, he topped it. With
that insane score. A score of 92 .35%. 92 .35%.
Just to give you listening some context, that
is an incredibly, almost unbelievably high score.
It was so high that people were actually skeptical.
There were whispers that maybe he cheated because
the score was, you know, practically perfect.
So what happened? They called him in for an oral
re -examination. And he proved it. He knew his
stuff inside and out. But here is where the story
takes a very dark turn. Because right as this
legal legend is being born, we get what you might
call the first crime. This is the Nelundesan
affair. I mean, this part of the story reads
like a noir movie script. It really does. So
Julio Nelundesan was a political rival of Ferdinand's
father, Mariano. In 1935, Nelundesan defeated
Mariano for a seat in the National Assembly.
It was a bitter, deeply humiliating loss for
the Marcos family. And then on September 21st,
1935, essentially the day after he won the election,
Lindeson was at his home. He was brushing his
teeth or washing up near a window and he was
shot. Just through the window. A single rifle
shot. Killed him instantly. Wow. And the finger
pointed at the Marcos family almost immediately.
Specifically Ferdinand. His father. and his uncles.
The theory was, you know, a family conspiracy
to avenge the political loss. And you have to
remember, Ferdinand was a national rifle champion
at UP. So he knew his way around a gun. He knew
his way around a gun. He was accused, tried,
and quoted. He was actually convicted, sentenced
to 10 to 17 years in prison. So hold on a second.
The future president of the Philippines is sitting
in a jail cell convicted of murder. For most
people, that's the end of any political career.
How on earth does he get out of that? This is
the aha moment of his early life. This defines
the Marcos playbook. While he was in jail, he
didn't just sit there. He studied. He wrote his
own appeal. And then he requested to argue his
own case before the Supreme Court. As a convicted
murderer, that is incredibly bold. It is. And
it worked. The justice who penned the decision
was Justice Jose P. Laurel. Now, interestingly,
Laurel himself had a, shall we say, a similar
history of violence and acquittal in his youth.
You're kidding. No. And Laurel overturned the
conviction. Marcos was acquitted. So this just
cemented the narrative. marcos is a genius he's
untouchable he can get out of the tightest spots
imaginable using his brain and his mastery of
the law exactly it created this aura of invincibility
it sends a message right i can commit the act
and i can legally maneuver my way out of the
consequence but if the legal genius was one pillar
of his myth The other was the war hero. Right.
This is a huge part of the branding. Marcos claimed
to be the most decorated war hero in the Philippines.
We're talking about, what, 27 medals? 27 medals,
the Distinguished Service Cross, even claims
to the Medal of Honor. He said he led a guerrilla
unit called Angmagamaharlika. The noble ones.
The noble ones. He built his entire political
brand on this idea, the soldier statesman. But
when historians and, more importantly, the U
.S. Army actually looked into the files later
on, well. the picture just crumbled the sources
here are pretty blunt i'm looking at u .s army
documents that describe these claims as fraudulent
and absurd they found zero evidence that his
supposed guerrilla unit the maharlika actually
fought the japanese in any significant way in
fact some records suggested they were more involved
in uh black market activities that were actually
detrimental to the real resistance. And the medals.
The medals are the kicker. Many of them were
awarded in 1962. 1962? Wait a minute, the war
ended in 1945. Exactly. Nearly two decades later,
awarded just in time for his Senate campaign,
he was retroactively building a legend to suit
a political purpose. He even started claiming
genealogy, linking him to General Antonio Luna,
a revolutionary hero, and a 16th century pirate
named Limahong. So he's just crafting this epic
destiny for himself. I'm the descendant of heroes,
the war hero, the legal genius. And it worked.
It absolutely worked. He climbed the political
ladder, House of Representatives, the Senate,
Senate president. And finally, the presidency
in 1965. He ran against the incumbent, Diosdado
Macapagal, and won. He won. So 1965, Marcos is
president. The slogan was... This nation can
be great again. These were supposed to be the
golden years. What did that look like on the
ground initially? Well, initially it looked like
construction. Massive, massive construction projects.
This is what economists and historians now call
his edifice complex. The edifice complex. He
launched these huge infrastructure projects.
Roads, schools, bridges, and of course the cultural
center of the Philippines, the CCP. The CCP is
iconic, but when you call it a complex, that
implies something psychological is going on.
Oh, for sure. It was about projecting an image
of progress, of modernity to the world. Look
at these grand buildings. Look at how far the
Philippines has come. And Melta Marcos, the first
lady, was heavily involved in all of this. But
the question you always have to ask with infrastructure
is who paid for it? And the analysis shows this
was all funded heavily by foreign loans. You
got it. Putting on a national credit card. So
it created a visual facade of prosperity, but
it was sowing the seeds of a massive debt crisis
down the road. Precisely. And speaking of foreign
money, we absolutely have to talk about the Vietnam
War. This is where the geopolitics really kicks
in. I thought Marcos was against the Vietnam
War, at least initially. Didn't he campaign on
keeping the Philippines out of it? He did. He
was publicly opposed to sending troops. But once
he was in office, the pressure from US President
Lyndon B. Johnson was just immense. The US needed
allies in Vietnam to make it look like an international
coalition. not just an American war. So Marcos
did a flip -flop. A classic political flip -flop.
He sent the FILCAG, the Philippine Civic Action
Group. But they were non -combat, right? They
were non -combat engineers, yes. So he could
technically claim they weren't fighting, but
they were there in the war zone. And the implication
is crystal clear. This secured U .S. political
support and, more importantly, U .S. funding.
Which he needed for those edifices. He needed
it for everything. But while he's building theaters
in Manila, Something very dark is happening in
the south of the country. The Jabada Massacre.
This feels like a major turning point in the
sources. It's a critical, critical turning point.
In 1968, there was a secret plan called Operation
Merdeka. The idea, allegedly, was to train a
special commando unit of Muslim recruits, Moros,
to go in and destabilize Sabah. Sabah, the territory
in Malaysia that the Philippines had a territorial
claim to. Correct. And these recruits were being
trained on Corregidor Island, of all places.
An historic fortress. The very one. But the mission
went sideways. The recruits reportedly mutinied.
Or they refused the mission. Some sources say
it's because they didn't want to fight their
fellow Muslims in Malaysia. Others say it was
because they just weren't being paid. So what
did the military do? To cover it all up, they
executed them. They just mowed them down. Yes.
But there was one survivor, a man named Jibin
Arula. He managed to swim away, clung to some
driftwood, and eventually he testified about
what happened. And when that news broke? It was
an absolute explosion. It completely alienated
the Muslim population from the Manila government,
which they already saw as Christian dominated
and, well, treacherous. This single event directly
ignites the Moro insurgency and leads to the
formation of the MNLF, the Moro National Liberation
Front. So the war in Mindanao that has lasted
for decades, you can trace a direct line right
back to this cover up. Absolutely. Yeah. It shattered
a trust that has arguably never been fully restored.
And as we move into a second term, that chaos,
that violence, it starts to spread to the capital
as well. Which brings us to the 1969 election.
Marcos becomes the first president in Philippine
history to win a second term. But the sources
we have describe this as the dirtiest, most violent
and most corrupt campaign ever seen. They called
it the campaign of the three G's. Guns, goons
and gold. Guns, goons and gold. Catchy, but terrifying.
The spending was completely out of control. Marcos
reportedly spent so much money buying votes and
securing loyalty that he actually triggered a
balance of payments crisis. Can you break that
down for the listener? What exactly is a balance
of payments crisis in this context? Sure. Basically,
the country ran out of its foreign currency reserves
because the government was spending far, far
more than it was bringing in. To fix it, they
had to devalue the currency, let the peso float.
Which means the peso plummeted against the dollar.
It plummeted. And when that happens, everything
imported gets more expensive. Inflation just
soared. The golden years facade was cracking
and fast. The average Filipino was suddenly much,
much poorer. And the people felt it. This is
where we see the first quarter storm erupting
in 1970. Yes. Massive student protests. And the
imagery is so vivid. During a State of the Nation
address, students literally threw a coffin and
a stuffed alligator at Marcos as he was entering
Congress. A stuffed alligator? That's very specific.
In Philican culture, the buaya, or crocodile,
the alligator, is the ultimate symbol of greed.
It's the symbol of the corrupt politician. And
the state's response to these protests? Violence.
The police dispersed the protests brutally. And
this had a radicalizing effect. Students who
are, you know, moderates, just asking for reform.
They started looking at the radicals and the
communist movement and thinking, maybe they're
right. Maybe the system can't be fixed. So violence
begets more violence. And then we get the Plaza
Miranda bombing in 1971. This is one of the biggest
and darkest mysteries in Philippine political
history. It was a liberal party rally, the main
opposition party. Grenades were thrown onto the
stage. Nine people died. Nearly 100 were injured.
The opposition leadership was almost entirely
wiped out in one night. And naturally, Marcos
blamed the communists. Immediately. He blamed
the CPP, NPA, the Communist Party of the Philippines,
Sioux People's Army. But his critics and even
later evidence from, you know, CIA, moles and
other sources suggested that Marcos might have
been involved. Or at the very least, he allowed
it to happen to create a pretext for cracking
down. A false flag operation. Create a crisis
to justify your solution. It's a very strong
possibility that historians debate to this day.
But regardless of who actually threw the grenade,
Marcos used it. He immediately suspended the
writ of habeas corpus. Which means? Habeas corpus
is the legal protection that prevents the government
from just arresting you without a warrant and
holding you indefinitely. So by suspending it,
he could arrest anyone he wanted. It blurred
the line between being a legal protester and
being an armed rebel. It feels like the walls
are just closing in. Then come the 1972 Manila
bombings, department stores, water pipes blowing
up. Right, a series of strange, mysterious explosions.
No one was really getting hurt, but it created
this atmosphere of terror and chaos in the capital.
The government blamed urban guerrillas. But again,
the only suspects who were ever caught were linked
to the Philippine constabulary, the police force.
It looked very much like stage setting. Setting
the stage for the big move. September 1972. Russia
law. Proclamation 1081. Signed on September 21st,
but announced to the public on September 23rd.
The official rationale was to save the republic
from the communists on the left and the oligarchs
on the right. He promised to reform society.
And the immediate action was... Absolute silence.
Complete silence. All media outlets were shut
down. Congress was padlocked. Opposition leaders
like Ninoy Aquino and Jose Diokno were arrested
in the middle of the night. It was a total, complete
takeover of the state. But Marcos was very savvy
with his branding. He didn't just say, I'm the
dictator now. He called it the new society. This
is what's so fascinating. He called it constitutional
authoritarianism. He wanted to reshape the Filipino
psyche, not just the government. There were songs,
slogans, propaganda everywhere. His daughter
Amy led the Kabatong Barangay, a national youth
group. It sounds a lot like social engineering.
It was exactly that. The goal was to discipline
the populace while centralizing all power in
one man. And to do that, you need an apparatus
of control. Enter the Rolex 12. Right. A circle
of 12 of his most loyal military and civilian
advisors, people like Juan Ponce and Ryle, Fidel
Ramos, Fabian Varar, they were the muscle. And
the military itself expanded from around 65 ,000
troops to over 270 ,000. That is a massive, massive
buildup. And what about the U .S.? They were
just watching this happen. The U .S. was in a
bind, or at least that's how they framed it.
The Carter administration later on had serious
concerns about human rights. The Cold War was
the absolute priority. The bases. The bases.
Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Base were just
too important for projecting American power in
Asia. So despite the documented abuses, billions
in military and economic aid just kept flowing
to Marcos. And let's talk about those abuses,
because the new society wasn't just parades and
youth groups. The human rights numbers in these
reports are just staggering. They are. Amnesty
International and other human rights groups estimate
that around 70 ,000 people were imprisoned, 34
,000 were tortured, and over 3 ,200 were killed.
And the specifics in the reports are they're
gruesome. We see terms like safe houses and the
San Juanico Bridge. The San Juanico Bridge refers
to a specific torture method. The actual bridge
is a famous landmark. But in the torture room,
it meant a victim was suspended between two beds
with their head on one and their feet on the
other. If they sagged or fell, they were beaten.
And there was sexual abuse, mutilation. Electrocution,
waterboarding, and a term that became terrifyingly
common in the Philippines, salvaging. Which ironically
doesn't mean saving something. No. In this context,
salvaging meant summary execution. Yeah. Taking
a suspect. killing them, and then dumping the
body in a field or a river to spread terror among
the population. We have names in these files,
too. People like Archimedes Trejano. A student.
He made the mistake of asking a question at an
open forum about Amy Marcos' appointment to a
government post. He questioned her qualifications.
He was dragged out by her security, beaten severely,
and his body was found a few days later. Then
there's Liliosa Hilau, Edgar Jobson. These were
young, bright people, the future of the country,
who were silenced. And it wasn't just individuals.
There were massacres. The Escalante Massacre,
the Malisbong Massacre, where, what, 1 ,500 Moros
were killed inside a mosque. It was a period
of intense, systematic brutality, all hidden
behind the propaganda of the new society. But
while this political repression was happening,
there was a parallel project, an economic looting
of the country. This is Section 5 of our deep
dive, The Economics of Plunder. This is where
the term kleptocracy rule by thieves really gets
defined. The official estimates of the stolen
wealth range from 5 billion to as high as 10
billion U .S. dollars. Just to put that in context
for everyone listening, what was his official
salary as president? It was about $13 ,500 a
year. So the math just doesn't work. Not even
close. How do you even steal $10 billion? You
can't just take that out of the National Register.
No, you have to institutionalize the theft. This
is what we call crony capitalism. It's not just
simple corruption. It's a systemic takeover of
the entire economy. How did it work? They did
it in a few ways. They diverted foreign aid.
They took massive kickbacks from all those public
works projects. But the biggest and most destructive
mechanism was creating monopolies. Give us an
example. The coconut levy fund scam is a big
one mentioned in the sources. This is just heartbreaking
because it targeted the poorest of the poor.
The government imposed a taxa levy on all coconut
farmers. They promised this money would be used
to develop the industry and help the farmers.
Sounds good in theory. In practice, that money,
billions and billions of pesos, was collected
and placed into a single bank. That bank was
then bought by Marcus's cronies. like Dan and
Kawanko, using the farmers' own money. Unbelievable.
They then used that bank to buy up all the coconut
mills and trading companies. So the cronies ended
up owning the entire industry from top to bottom,
bought with the farmers' own cash, while the
farmers themselves got nothing. It completely
decimated their livelihoods. And all that profit,
where did it go? It didn't stay in the Philippines.
No. It went into secret Swiss bank accounts.
It went into shell corporations that were fronted
by people like Jose El Campos. And it went into
real estate. They bought landmark buildings in
New York, the Crown Building, 40 Wall Street,
mansions in London, Rome, Hawaii. And the Guinness
Book of World Records actually cited them for
the largest ever theft from a government. That's
a wild record to hold. It is. But the domestic
impact was the real tragedy. By the early 80s,
the economy had completely crashed. Foreign debt
went from around $360 million in 1962 to over
$26 billion by 1985. And poverty. Poverty skyrocketed.
It went from 41 % of the population to nearly
59%. Real wages just plummeted. Economists have
a term for this, don't they? Immiserizing growth.
That's it, exactly. The GDP might have ticked
up on paper for a while because of all the debt
-fueled spending, but the people on the ground
actually got poorer and poorer. So you have a
starving population, a brutal military, and a
leader who is, by all accounts, losing his physical
grip. We're moving into the decline and fall.
By 1981, Marcos officially lifted martial law.
But it was a complete sham. He kept all his decree
-making powers. It was just a PR move to plunder
the pope who was visiting and to appease the
U .S. But the real turning point, the moment
everything truly changed, was August 21, 1983.
The assassination of Ninoy Aquino. Benigno Ninoy
Aquino was the face of the opposition. He'd been
in exile in the U .S. He decided to return, knowing
full well how dangerous it was. He famously said,
The Filipino is worth dying for. He lands at
the Manila International Airport. He steps off
the plane. And before his feet even touch the
tarmac. Gunshots. He was killed right there on
the airport stairs, surrounded by soldiers who
were supposed to be protecting him. The government
immediately blamed a lone gunman, a supposed
communist hitman named Rolando Gallman. But nobody
bought it. The security was just too tight. It
sparked this massive nationwide outrage. And
not just from the usual student activists this
time, but from the middle class. The business
elites. This is where we see the confetti revolution
in the business district of Makati. Yellow confetti
raining down from all the office buildings. Capital
flight accelerated. The economy went into a complete
tailspin. And Marcos himself was physically deteriorating.
The lupus. He had lupus. His kidneys were failing.
He was secretly undergoing transplants. There
was a power vacuum and Imelda was increasingly
stepping in to fill it. So under immense pressure
from the U .S. to prove he still had a legitimate
mandate, Marcos calls a snap election in early
1986. He thought he could rig it one more time
and put the issue to rest. He ran against Corazon
Aquino. Ninoy's widow. And the fraud was just
blatant. But there's this incredible, almost
cinematic moment that happens in the tabulation
center. The Kamala computer technicians, they
were sitting there and putting the votes. And
they saw the numbers being manipulated in real
-time votes for Aquino being shaved off, votes
for Marcos being patted. And about 30 of them
just stood up and walked out in protest. And
it was televised? It was televised. It showed
the entire world that the election was a sham.
So both sides declared victory. It was a standoff.
And then the military finally breaks. Defense
Minister Enrail and General Ramos, two of his
original Rolex 12, they defected. They holed
up in military camps along the main highway,
EDSA, and then Cardinal Sin, the Archbishop of
Manila, went on the radio and called on the people
to go out and protect them. This is it. EDSA,
the people power revolution. Millions of people
pouring onto the highway. Nuns kneeling in front
of tanks, holding rosaries. Marcos ordered the
military to disperse the crowds. He was on the
phone with General Ver, who was itching to open
fire. But ultimately, the troops on the ground
refused to shoot their own people. It was over.
So the endgame. Marcos gets on the phone with
Washington. He talks to U .S. Senator Paul Laxalt.
He asks for advice. And Laxalt gives that famous,
chillingly simple reply. Cut and cut cleanly.
Meaning, it's time to go. The U .S. Air Force
flew the family out of the palace, first to Guam,
then to Hawaii. And they didn't exactly pack
light. The inventory of what they brought with
them is just mind -blowing. It's the physical
evidence of the plunder. They arrived with 22
crates of cash. We're talking over $700 million
in value. Gold bullion. Exquisite jewelry. There
was even a solid gold statue covered in diamonds.
And back in Manila, the protesters stormed the
Malacanang Palace. And what did they find? The
shoes. Imelda's 2 ,700 pairs of shoes. It became
the global symbol of their obscene excess. While
the country was in deep poverty, she had a department
store in her closet. So Marcos is in exile in
Hawaii. Does he just accept defeat and live out
his days? Not at all. He immediately started
plotting to return. There are the Marcos tapes
recordings of him talking about buying tanks
and missiles for an invasion to retake the Philippines.
But his health finally caught up with him. He
died in 1989 of organ failure. But the story
doesn't end with his death, does it? No, not
by a long shot. His body was brought back but
kept in a refrigerated crypt in Ilocos for decades.
The family refused to bury him unless it was
a hero's burial. And in 2016, President Duterte
allowed it. He was buried at the living nun Namuga
Bayani, the hero's cemetery. Which sparked massive
protests all over again. It was seen as a blatant
attempt to rewrite history. to legitimize the
dictatorship. And speaking of rewriting history,
the family came back. They returned to politics
despite the theft, despite the human rights abuses.
And the Swiss government eventually returned
about $684 million of the stolen funds. Class
action lawsuits in the U .S. awarded billions
to the human rights victims, though collecting
it has been incredibly difficult. But the family
itself, they maintained their innocence. They
call the documented abuses political accusations.
And then in 2022, his son, Ferdinand Bongbong
Marcos Jr., was elected president of the Philippines.
It's a remarkable, some would say shocking, political
resurrection. It speaks to the power of branding,
of social media, of historical revisionism, and
perhaps the failure of the post -EDSA administrations
to deliver on the promises of the revolution
for everyone. Many people look back at the myth
of the golden years with a kind of nostalgia,
forgetting the mechanics of the plunder we just
discussed. So what does this all mean? We have
a new society that became a kleptocracy, a supposed
war hero who faked his medals, a dictator who
was ousted by the people in a peaceful revolution,
yet his family is back in power. It brings us
right back to that Marcos paradox. Yeah. He had
the vision and the intellect to build a strong
nation. I mean, he really did know the law and
the system better than anyone. But he used all
those tools to build a personal empire instead.
He centralized power to reform society. But that
very centralization just made it easier to steal
from it. That's a very heavy legacy to unpack.
It is. And here's a provocative thought to leave
you with, to leave everyone listening with. We
often think of history as something settled.
The dictator falls, democracy wins, the end.
But the Marcos story shows us that history is
fluid. It can be revised. It can be rebranded.
So the question is, if a figure with such a heavily
documented record of theft and abuse can see
his family return to the very center of power,
what does that say about the durability of truth
itself in our modern age? That is something to
mull over. Thank you for listening to this deep
dive into the machinery of the Marcos regime.
Always a pleasure to explore the archives with
you. Keep asking questions. We'll see you in
the next deep dive.