Martial law under Ferdinand Marcos

The Sunday edition of the Philippines Daily Express on September 24, 1972, was the only newspaper published after the announcement of martial law on September 23, the evening prior
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Ferdinand Marcos

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President of the Philippines

At 7:15 p.m. on September 23, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos announced on television that he had placed the Philippines under martial law,[1][2] stating he had done so in response to the "communist threat" posed by the newly founded Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the sectarian "rebellion" of the Muslim Independence Movement (MIM). Opposition figures of the time (such as Lorenzo Tañada, Jose W. Diokno, and Jovito Salonga) accused Marcos of exaggerating these threats and using them as an excuse to consolidate power and extend his tenure beyond the two presidential terms allowed by the 1935 constitution.[3] Marcos signed Proclamation No. 1081 on September 21, 1972, marking the beginning of a fourteen-year period of one-man rule, which effectively lasted until Marcos was exiled from the country on February 25, 1986.[4][5] Proclamation No. 1081 was formally lifted on January 17, 1981, although Marcos retained essentially all of his powers as dictator until he was ousted in February 1986.[6][7]

This nine-year period in Philippine history is remembered for the Marcos administration's record of human rights abuses,[8][9] particularly targeting political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against the Marcos dictatorship.[10] Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities,[11] historians believe that the Marcos dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 737 "disappeared", and 70,000 incarcerations.[11][12]: 4 [13]: 16  After Marcos was ousted, government investigators discovered that the declaration of martial law had also allowed the Marcoses to hide secret stashes of unexplained wealth that various courts[6] later determined to be "of criminal origin".[14]

While Marcos's presidency began in late 1965,[15] this article is limited to the period in which he exercised dictatorial powers under martial law,[1] and the period where he continued to wield those powers despite lifting the proclamation in 1981.[16][17]

  1. ^ a b "Declaration of Martial Law". Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines.
  2. ^ Ocampo, Ambeth (2021). Looking Back 15: Martial Law. Mandaluyong, Philippines: Anvil Publishing, Inc. ISBN 978-971-27-3637-7.
  3. ^ "Declaration of Martial Law".
  4. ^ Tadem, Eduardo Climaco (July 3, 2015). "Technocracy and the Peasantry: Martial Law Development Paradigms and Philippine Agrarian Reform". Journal of Contemporary Asia. 45 (3): 394–418. doi:10.1080/00472336.2014.983538. ISSN 0047-2336. S2CID 154354138.
  5. ^ Tolosa, Benjamin (January 1, 2011). "Publication -- Filipino Social Democracy: Origins and Characteristics, Lessons and Challenges". Political Science Department Faculty Publications. Retrieved August 31, 2020.
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference KaiFrancisco20160922 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "The Fall of the Dictatorship". Official Gazette (Philippines). Retrieved September 18, 2021.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference McCoy199909202 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ N., Abinales, P. (2005). State and society in the Philippines. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7425-1023-4. OCLC 57452454.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ "Gone too soon: 7 youth leaders killed under Martial Law". Rappler. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  11. ^ a b "3,257: Fact checking the Marcos killings, 1975–1985 – The Manila Times Online". www.manilatimes.net. April 12, 2016. Archived from the original on April 12, 2016. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  12. ^ Report of an Amnesty International Mission to the Republic of the Philippines, 22 November - 5 December 1975 (Report). September 1, 1976. ISBN 0900058366. LCCN 77373247.
  13. ^ Robles, Raissa (2016). Marcos Martial Law: Never Again. Filipinos for a Better Philippines, Inc.
  14. ^ de Ynchausti, Nik (September 24, 2016). "The tallies of Martial Law". Esquire Magazine Philippines. Archived from the original on September 28, 2016. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  15. ^ "Back to the Past: A timeline of press freedom". CMFR. September 1, 2007. Retrieved March 2, 2018.
  16. ^ "The Fall of the Dictatorship". Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. Archived from the original on September 3, 2017. Retrieved September 9, 2018.
  17. ^ "The Sydney Morning Herald - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved September 22, 2020.