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1.5 THE WOUNDS LEFT BY THE MARCOS REGIME
writes, “for as long as the technocracy could access the needed IMF/World Bank loans for the country, the leadership gave it substantive bargaining leverage” (Tadem, 2013). This in turn deteriorated the country’s economic and political instability, which peaked at the global economic recession of 1981 (Tadem, 2013).
THE WOUNDS LEFT BY THE MARCOS ERA
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On September 21st, 1972, then president Ferdinand Marcos signed Proclamation No. 1081 placing the Philippines under Martial Law for the next 14 years———with their dictatorship ultimately ending in 1986 with the peaceful demonstrations of the EDSA People Power Revolution). Martial Law, suspends the function of a government by civil law and places direct control under military purview, a tactic that Marcos justified to curb the increasing “communist threat” by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), Mindanao Independence Movement (MIM), and ultimately any and all dissent by his political adversaries. This consolidation of power marks a troubling and painful time in the Philippines where the legacy of the Martial Law regime is associated with a gross violation of human rights that targeted student activists, political opponents, intellectuals, farmers, workers; anyone against the Marcos administration. According to Amnesty International, 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured and 3,240 were killed during Martial Law.
Yet, those who turn a blind eye to the dark realities of Martial Law which would go on to fuel the People Power Revolution tout the Martial Law era as a time where the nation prospered due to the Marcos administration’s aggressive infrastructure projects. Both Ferdinand and Imelda built schools, hospitals, bridges, roads and more with the stroke of a pen thanks to PD and EO privileges, overriding any discussion in the Senate or Congress.
(Figure 4, left)
“FM DECLARES MARTIAL LAW”— the headline of the September 24, 1972 issue of the Sunday Express, which was the Sunday edition of Philippines Daily Express. The Daily Express was the only newspaper allowed to circulate upon the declaration of Martial Law
