FERDINAND MARCOS SR., THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL LEADER IN PHILIPPINES' HISTORY 

Did you know that Ferdinand Marcos Sr., Filipino 10th president alleged to have stole US$5–$10 billion from the country's Central Bank between 1965 and 1986, offered to return 90% of his ill-gotten wealth from abroad to the Filipino people in exchange for being buried back in the Philippines?

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917–September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial law from 1972 until 1981 and kept most of his martial law powers until he was deposed in 1986, branding his rule as "constitutional authoritarianism" under his Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (New Society Movement).

One of the most controversial leaders of the 20th century, Marcos's rule was infamous for its corruption, extravagance, and brutality. He gained political success by claiming to have been the "most decorated war hero in the Philippines", but many of his claims have been found to be false, with United States Army documents describing his wartime claims as "fraudulent" and "absurd". 

After World War II, he became a lawyer then served in the Philippine House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the Philippine Senate from 1959 to 1965. He was elected the President of the Philippines in 1965 and presided over an economy that grew during the beginning of his 20-year rule, but would end in the loss of livelihood, extreme poverty, and a crushing debt crisis. He pursued an aggressive program of infrastructure development funded by foreign debt, making him popular during his first term, although it triggered an inflationary crisis which led to social unrest in his second term. 

Marcos placed the Philippines under martial law on September 23, 1972, shortly before the end of his second term. Martial law was ratified in 1973 through a fraudulent referendum. The Constitution was revised, media outlets were silenced, and violence and oppression were used against the political opposition, Muslims, suspected communists, and ordinary citizens.

After being elected for a third term in the 1981 Philippine presidential election and referendum, Marcos's popularity suffered greatly, due to the economic collapse that began in early 1983 and the public outrage over the assassination of opposition leader Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. later that year. This discontent, the resulting resurgence of the opposition in the 1984 Philippine parliamentary election, and the discovery of documents exposing his financial accounts and false war records led Marcos to call the snap election of 1986. 

Allegations of mass cheating, political turmoil, and human rights abuses led to the People Power Revolution of February 1986, which removed him from power. To avoid what could have been a military confrontation in Manila between pro- and anti-Marcos troops, Marcos was advised by US President Ronald Reagan through Senator Paul Laxalt to "cut and cut cleanly". Marcos then fled with his family to Hawaii. He was succeeded as president by Aquino's widow, Corazon "Cory" Aquino.

According to source documents provided by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the Marcos family stole US$5 billion–$10 billion from the Central Bank of the Philippines. The PCGG also maintained that the Marcos family enjoyed a decadent lifestyle, taking away billions of dollars from the Philippines between 1965 and 1986. His wife, Imelda Marcos, made infamous in her own right by the excesses that characterized her and her husband's conjugal dictatorship, is the source of the term "Imeldific". Two of their children, Imee Marcos and Bongbong Marcos, are still active in Philippine politics, with Bongbong having been elected president in the 2022 Philippine presidential election. 

Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos held the Guinness World Record for the largest-ever theft from a government for decades, although Guinness took the record down from their website while it underwent periodic review a few weeks before the 2022 election.

Marcos was admitted to the hospital on January 15, 1989, with pneumonia and underwent a series of operations. In his dying days, Marcos was visited by Vice President Salvador Laurel. During the meeting with Laurel, Marcos offered to return 90% of his ill-gotten wealth to the Filipino people in exchange for being buried back in the Philippines beside his mother, an offer also disclosed to Enrique Zobel. However, Marcos's offer was rebuffed by the Aquino government and by Imelda Marcos.

Marcos died at St. Francis Medical Center in Honolulu at 12:40 a.m (HST) on September 28, 1989, of kidney, heart, and lung ailments, 17 days after his 72nd birthday. Moments after, the younger Ferdinand eulogised his late father by stating, "Hopefully friends and detractors alike will look beyond the man to see what he stood for his vision, his compassion and his total love of country".

Marcos was interred in a private mausoleum at Byodo-In Temple on the island of Oahu where his remains were visited daily by the Marcos family, political allies and friends. Meanwhile, the Aquino government refused to allow Marcos's body to be brought back to the Philippines. The body was only brought back to the Philippines four years after Marcos's death during the term of President Fidel Ramos.

From 1993 to 2016, his remains were interred inside a refrigerated crypt in Ilocos Norte, where his son, Ferdinand Jr., and eldest daughter, Imee, have since become the local governor and congressional representative, respectively. A large bust of Ferdinand Marcos (inspired by Mount Rushmore) was commissioned by the tourism minister, Jose Aspiras, and carved into a hillside in Benguet. It was subsequently destroyed; suspects included left-wing activists, members of a local tribe who had been displaced by construction of the monument, and looters hunting for the legendary Yamashita treasure.

On November 18, 2016, the remains of Marcos were buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte despite opposition from various groups. The burial came as unexpected to many, as the Supreme Court's ruling still allowed 15 days for the opposition to file a motion for reconsideration. On the morning of November 18, using Philippine Armed Forces helicopters, his family and their supporters flew his remains from Ilocos to Manila for a private burial.

In the months prior, opinion on his burial at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani had been split: 50 percent of the 1,800 respondents of a survey conducted by SWS in February 2016 said Marcos "was worthy to be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani" while the other half rejected a hero's burial, calling him a "thief". 

Various protest groups formed immediately upon hearing the news of the unexpected burial. Among those who gathered to oppose the burial were youth groups and opponents of the burial of Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The League of Filipino Students described the transfer of Marcos's remains as being done like "a thief in the night". They also criticized the government's involvement in the burial of the former president who they described as a "fascist dictator". The Kabataan Partylist also condemned the burial, labeling it as a "grave travesty" and as "galawang Hokage" in reference to the burial of Marcos being planned and conducted unbeknownst to the public.

In 2018, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan convicted Imelda Marcos of seven counts of graft related to private organizations created in Switzerland while she was a government official from 1968 to 1986. She is out on bail. At the end of 2020, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) reported that they had recovered P174.2 billion in Marcos ill-gotten wealth, while running after P125.9 billion more in ill-gotten wealth by the Marcos family. In 2021, the Sandiganbayan ordered the turnover of Marcos loot amounting to P1 billion to the Philippine government.

Image credit: CNN

Sources:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Marcos

https://www.rappler.com/nation/guinness-record-ferdinand-marcos-greatest-robbery-of-government-suddenly-inaccessible-march-2022/