READ: Never forget the Conjugal Dictatorship
The corruption was so outrageous that it earned the distinction of being “The Greatest Robbery of A Government” from the Guinness World Records. The World Bank and UN Office on Drugs and Crimes said Marcos, having the longest reign as dictator, stole between $5 billion and $10 billion from the country’s coffers. In reports by international newspapers The Guardian and Washington Post, it was said that the Marcoses carried with them essential belongings, including cash and gems (some of which were in diaper boxes), 70 pairs of jeweled cufflinks and enough clothes to fill 67 racks. This narrative was strengthened when Marcos’ close confidante, the late industrialist Enrique Zobel, submitted a 14-page affidavit to the Senate blue ribbon committee.Ī report by ABS-CBN News said the dictator left his family-widow Imelda and children Bongbong, Imee and Irene-with $35 billion worth of gold bars in 1989. “Certificates for gold bullion valued in the billions of dollars were allegedly among the personal properties he, his family, his cronies and business partners surreptitiously took with them when the US provided them safe passage to Hawaii,” the report said. The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, in the report “The End of an Era – Handholding Ferdinand Marcos in Exile,” said the United States Customs found 24 crates with gold bricks and diamond jewelry. Sent packing, fleeingĪfter the Edsa People Power, a revolt that ended the more than 20-year reign of the Marcoses, reports documenting the family’s flight and arrival to Hawaii said crates of belongings, worth billions of pesos, were transported, too. “We can see that prices of basic commodities tripled, such that what cost P100 in 1976 now cost more than P300 – even nearing P400 – in 1986,” said the Martial Law Museum. These declines happened in the years when prices of goods were surging especially in the last 10 years of the dictatorship. The wages of farmers even went as low as P23 in 1974, right after the declaration of martial law.įrom P127 and P89 daily income for skilled workers and workers without school training in 1962, wages fell sharply to P35 and P23 in 1986.
The daily income of agricultural workers declined by at least 30 percent-from P42 in 1962 to P30 in 1986. In 2015, when the dictatorship was raised as an issue in the coming 2016 elections, Bongbong said there was nothing to apologize for because his father was not a liability but an asset.īut the Martial Law Museum said “poverty worsened” over the course of the dictatorship, emphasizing that six out of 10 families were poor by the time the Marcos regime ended, an increase from the four out of 10 families before Marcos took office in 1965. Some news outlets were allowed to operate, especially those that were owned by Marcos’ friends like Roberto Benedicto of the Kanlaon Broadcasting System and the Philippine Daily Express.Īccording to the Human Rights Violations Victims’ Memorial Commission (HRVVMC), 579 businesses were likewise “violently and illegally” taken over by the dictatorship.
MARTIAL LAW COMING FREE
of the Philippines Free Press, Chino Roces of Manila Times and journalists Amando Doronila, Luis Beltran, Maximo Soliven, Juan Mercado and Luis Mauricio. 1 allowing the military to take over media, mainly ABS-CBN and Channel 5.ĭays after declaring martial law, state agents arrested and imprisoned Teodoro Locsin Sr. 18, 1972, he issued Letter of Instruction No. Marcos lost no time enforcing the crackdown on media.
“By doing so, Marcos had the final say in whatever passed for the truth,” it added. “By shutting down competing voices and setting up a media outlet that was under his control, Marcos silenced public criticism and controlled the information that the people had access to,” the Martial Law Museum said. The media, extremely essential for any democracy, were likewise silenced by the dictatorship. The writ, which in Latin refers to “having the body,” is a protection against illegal imprisonment. It likewise said that because “power was in the wrong hands,” the declaration of martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus “opened the real possibility of the violation of civil rights.” “A debt-driven growth is growth that sacrifices long-term benefits for short-term gratification, and ultimately leads to more burden than boon for the future generations that must pay these debts,” the Martial Law Museum said. READ: ‘Nightmare’ of Marcos rule ‘still haunts us today’ – bishops It said the increase in “our debts explains the growth, especially in infrastructure, primarily touted by some to assess the economic gains of the Marcos regime.”
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