Ferdinand Edralin Marcos: Early Life
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos: Early Life
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos: Early Life
EARLY LIFE
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was born on September 11, 1917, in Sarrat, a village in the
Ilocos North region of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. His parents, Josefa Edralin
and Mariano Marcos, were both teachers from important families. In 1925 Mariano
Marcos became a congressman, surrounding the young Ferdinand in a political
atmosphere at an early age. Mariano also had a strong influence on what was to become
Ferdinand's competitive, win-at-all-costs nature. Mariano and Josefa pushed Ferdinand
to excel at everything, not only his studies at school, but also at activities such as
wrestling, boxing, hunting, survival skills, and marks-manship (skill with a gun or rifle). In
college, Marcos's main interest was the .22-caliber college pistol team.
Persistent rumors say that Ferdinand’s biological father was a man named Ferdinand
Chua, who served as his godfather. Officially, however, Josefa’s husband, Mariano
Marcos,ws the child’s father.
In 1933, one of his father’s political rivals who had managed to defeat Mariano Marcos in
an election was murdered. Ferdinand Marcos was accused and prosecuted for having
colluded in the murder. He was found guilty but he defended himself in court. He was
acquitted six years after the alleged murder took place.
When he sat for the 1939 Bar Examinations, he received a near-perfect score of 98.8%,
although some have disputed this score. The Philippine Supreme Court felt justified in
altering his scoring. He graduated cum laude.
PERSONAL LIFE
He was married to Imelda Romualdez, on May 1, 1954 and the marriage produced three
children.
1. Maria Imelda "Imee" Marcos (born 12 November 1955), Governor of Ilocos Norte
2. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (born 13 September 1957), Senator of the Philippines
3. Irene Marcos (born 16 September 1960)
His fourth child, Aimee Romualdez Marcos, was adopted and was a musician in 2012.
When Marcos first met Imelda Romualdez in 1954, it was love at first sight. So after only
two weeks of courtship, the couple tied the kont first in a civil ceremony in baguio City
followed by a church wedding at the Pro Cathedral of San Miguel in Manila.
To make this possible, Imelda had to convince Ferdinand to convert from his native
Aglipayan religion to Roman Catholicism. She succeeded in persuading the latter, and
the churh wedding was held afterwards with President ramon Magsaysay as the
principal sponsor.
MILITARY CAREER
At the outbreak of World War II, Ferdinand Marcos was practicing law in Manila. He
soon joined the Filipino Army, and fought against the Japanese invasion as a combat
intelligence officer in the 21st Infantry Division.
Marcos saw action in the three-month-long Battle of Bataan, in which the Allied forces
lost Luzon to the Japanese. He survived the Bataan Death March, a week-long ordeal
that killed about 1/4 of Japan's American and Filipino POWs on Luzon.
RISE TO POWER
Following Philippines’ independence and the end of the Second World War, Ferdinand
Marcos joined politics. He entered the House of Representatives from Ilocos Norte in
1949 and over the next ten years he was elected to the house two more times. During
that decade, he served in different important capacities like the Chairman of House
Committee on Commerce and Industry, member of the defence committee and several
other committees.
In 1959, Marcos became a member of the Philippine Senate and before long he became
the floor leader of the minority. Two years after getting into the senate, the Liberal
Party made him their executive vice president and two years after that he became the
Senate President. During his two year long stint as the president of the Senate, Marcos
was responsible for the introduction of a number of new bills.
In 1965, Marcos was elected as the President of Philippines and during his campaign for
the presidency, he stressed on his past as a soldier and the campaign proved to be
successful. A year after assuming the presidency, Marcos sent Philippine soldiers to
serve in the Vietnam War where they served for four years.
Marcos became the president for a second term in 1969 and the very next year he had
to face opposition and protests from the left wing. The protests, along with Islamic
threats, were one of the main reasons why Marcos imposed martial law in Philippines
three years after beginning his 2nd term and for the next nine years the country was
under martial law as Marcos tried to establish a ‘New Society’. Opposition leaders and
left wing activists were arrested, media was censored and even the Congress was closed
down.
Marcos’ third term as the president of Philippines ran into trouble in 1985 when there
was an attempt to impeach him for stealing state assets to the tune of millions but a
committee struck it down. The same year, Marcos called for elections ahead of schedule
and duly won it, however there were allegations of electoral corruption. The failure of
the electoral process gave further power to the ‘People Power Movement’. A year after
the election, the opposition overtook the city and Marcos fled. He found asylum in
Hawaii.
In preparation for Pope John Paul II's visit, Marcos lifted martial law on January 17,
1981.
Nonetheless, Marcos pushed through legislative and Constitutional reforms to ensure
that he would retain all of his extended powers. It was purely a cosmetic change.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Although they branded former President Marcos as a dictator, corrupt, human rights
violator by his enemies, we cannot deny all the achievements that he had done during his
20 years of service in the Philippines. Even though they try to combine all the
achievements of his successors on the seat, no one can beat his record. Because he was
one of the few Presidents who really had compassion towards his country.
List of Achievements
Cultural Center of the Philippines
- Established through Executive Order No. 30 s. 1966 by President Ferdinand Marcos,
the CCP provides performance and exhibition venues for various local and
international productions at its 62-hectare (150-acre) complex located in the Cities of
Pasay and Manila.
The Tanghalang Francisco Balagtas (Folk Arts Theater)
- Famous concerts are usually staged in this covered amphitheater which has a seating
capacity of 8,458 with ten sections. More commonly known by its original name of
Folk Arts Theater
Philippine International Convention Center
- This state-of-the-art convention center located in the Cultural Center of the
Philippines complex in Pasay, Metro Manila, has been the host of numerous local and
foreign conventions, meetings, and social affairs
People’s Park in the Sky
- Built in 1981 during the Marcos regime, it was to serve as a guest house for then U.S.
President Ronald Reagan who was set to visit the Philippines.
Philippine Heart Center
- Originally named as Philippine Heart Center for Asia , the Philippine Heart Center in
Quezon City was established through Presidential Decree No. 673 issued by President
Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1975.
Lung Center of the Philippines
- Under Presidential Decree No. 1823 by President Ferdinand Marcos, the Lung Center
of the Philippines was established on January 16, 1981 to provide health care that
specifically targets lung and pulmonary disease.
The National Kidney and Transplant Institute
- Formerly known as the National Kidney Foundation of the Philippines, the institute
was established on January 16, 1981 as tertiary referral hospital that also offers
voluntary blood services.
San Juanico Bridge
- A Part of the Pan-Philippine Highway, the San Juanico Bridge stretches from Samar to
Leyte across the San Juanico Strait in the Philippines.
FALL OF DICTATORSHIP
The main factor that led to the downfall of the Marcos regime was the overwhelming
authoritarian corruption, despotism, nepotism, political repression, and human rights
violations occuring in his cabinet during the last years of his presidency. One very
important event was the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr., the leader of Marcos'
oppostion. Marcos' and his government was charged with the assassination. And this
event sort of opened the eyes of the Filipino people. Upon pressures from the public
and foreign allies, Marcos ordered a snap election where he ran against Benigno Aquino
Jr.'s wife, Corazon Aquino. This acted as the catalyst to the People Power Revolution,
and in the end, Corazon Aquino proved victorious.
After that, he was thrown out of the country. Allegedly, Marcos embezzled billions of
dollars from the Philippine treasury. Some sources say that aiport security found bricks
upon bricks of gold in his luggage that he stole from the Philippines. Unfortunately, the
Philippines is still dealing with the debts incurred from his presidency even though it has
been more than twenty years since his downfall.
IMELDA ROMUALDEZ MARCOS
EARLY LIFE
Born on July 2, 1929, in Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos is best
known as the former first lady of the Philippines. First, however, she was Imelda
Remedios Visitacion Romualdez, the oldest daughter of a lawyer and a homemaker. She
grew up with her five younger siblings and several older half-siblings from her father's
first marriage.
Marcos experienced a number of hardships at a young age. She lost her mother to
pneumonia when she was 8, and her father's law practice fizzled out around the same
time. He then moved to the family to Tacloban in Leyte, his home province. The family
continued to struggle financially. A skilled vocalist, Marcos attended an all-girls school
called Holy Infant Academy in Tacloban.
She came back to Manila in 1952 during the regime of President Quirino and stayed in
the house of her relative, Danieling Romualdez, who was a formidable politician and the
Speaker Protempore of the Lower House of Congress. Danieling Romualdez did not have
children on his own but had adopted three orphans. According to the book The Untold
Story of Imelda Marcos by Carmen Navarro-Pedrosa, her status in the house of
Danieling Romualdez was "higher than servants and lower than family members as a
poor relative". During her father's visit to Manila, she worked as a salesgirl in a store
called P. E. Domingo where Vicente Romualdez was infuriated at Eduardo Romualdez
(the Chairman of Rehabilitation Finance Corporation) and Danieling Romualdez because
Vicente thought that his two nephews were "selling his daughter".
FIRST LADY
In April 1954 she met Ferdinand Marcos, then a 36-year-old congressman who had
already earned a reputation as an ambitious and media-savvy politician. The couple
married after a whirlwind two-week courtship. Over the next decade Ferdinand and
Imelda established themselves as one of the premier political couples in the Philippines.
In 1965 Marcos was elected president of the Philippines, and Imelda proved to be an
invaluable asset. Her glamour initially had broad appeal, and she oversaw numerous
beautification projects in Manila. The declaration of martial law during Marcos’s second
presidential term, however, signaled a change in the domestic political climate.
Although Imelda remained an asset abroad, opposition politicians characterized her as a
drain on the national treasury and a proponent of nepotism during her appointments as
governor of Metropolitan Manila (1975–86) and minister of human settlements and
ecology (1979–86).
While many Filipinos lived in poverty, Imelda Marcos became known for her lavish
spending. She traveled to New York City and other destinations to buy expensive
fashions, high-end jewelry and other luxury items. Marcos had to have the finest of
everything for the presidential residence—the Malacañang Palace. But all of this
splendor was gained at the cost of the Filipino people. It is believed that the Marcos
family and their cronies took billions from the country's coffers.
Contemporary Politician
A first lady no longer, Marcos has struck out on her own as a political force. She won her
first election since returning from exile in the mid-1990s, serving as a member of the
country's House of Representatives for several years. In 2010, she won election to
become the representative for Ilocos Norte province, the area where her late husband
was born and where the Marcos family still wields political clout. Two of her children are
in politics as well. Her daughter Imee won the post of governor of Ilocos Norte in 2010,
and son Ferdinand Jr. was elected to the national senate that same year.
MARIA IMELDA JOSEFA R MARCOS
Most widely known as Imee Marcos, is a Filipino politician who has been Governor of
Ilocos Norte since 2010. She served three terms as Representative of the 2nd District of
Ilocos Norte in the Philippine House of Representatives from 1998 to 2007. She formerly
belonged to the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan or KBL political party, the same party that
supported her father, President Ferdinand Marcos. Subsequently she joined the alliance of
the Nacionalista Party of Manny Villar in support of her mother and her brother. She is the
sister of Ilocos Norte Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., who replaced her as the Representative
for the 2nd District of Ilocos Norte.
BIOGRAPHY
Marcos, who turned 10 the day after her father was elected president in 1965, grew up
as a young child at Malacañan Palace, the official residence of the president of Republic
of the Philippines. In an interview with Filipinas Magazine in 1999, she admitted that she
was not comfortable living at the Palace because it was too confining, very formal and
fixed. She also added that it is not necessarily the most appropriate place to bring up a
kid but it was quite nice.
Imee became the most visible among the three Marcos children when she returned to
the Philippines. She was chairperson of the Kabataang Barangay or youth organization.
Back in Manila, Marcos earned her Bachelor of Laws from the University of the
Philippines College of Law in Diliman, Quezon City were she study as a scholar all
throughout her school days, she also graduated as summa cum laude. Then, she earned
her M.A. in Management and Business Administration from the Asian Institute of
Management in Makati
Imee Marcos is the most vocal defender of martial law and her father, the late
Ferdinand Marcos. In her most recent pronouncements, she said: "The best roads and
bridges were built during martial law. Even the movies then were very good."
FERDINAND R. MARCOS JR.
BIOGRAPHY
NONES,MONICA CHRISTIANNE M.
AT701E