FERDINAND EMMANUEL

EDRALIN MARCOS SR.

10TH PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES
BIOGRAPHY | JACK DANIEL BALBUENA
“THIS NATION CAN
BE GREAT AGAIN”
EARLY LIFE
• Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was born on September 11, 1917, in Sarrat, a village
in the Ilocos Norte 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.
EARLY LIFE
• Marcos's real father was not Mariano but a wealthy
Chinese man named Ferdinand Chua. (Marcos would
claim that Chua was his "godfather.") Chua was a well-
connected judge who was responsible for much of Marcos's
unusual good luck as a young man. Among other things,
Chua paid for young Marcos's schooling and later managed
to influence the Philippine Supreme Court to overturn the
young Marcos's conviction for murder.
EDUCATION
• he attended the Sarrat Central School, Shamrock
Elementary School in Laoag and the Ermita Elementary
School in Manila
• He finished high school and liberal arts course at the
University of the Philippines.
• Marcos studied law at the University of the Philippines
(UP) in Manila
• When he sat for the 1939 Bar Examinations, he was a bar
topnotcher (top scorer) with a score of 92.35%
• He graduated cum laude and was in the top ten of his
class
• Ferdinand Marcos received an honorary Doctor of Laws
EARLY LIFE
• On September 20, 1935, Julio Nalundasan was at home
celebrating his congressional election victory over
Mariano Marcos when he was shot and killed with a .22-
caliber bullet fired by the eighteen-year-old Ferdinand
Marcos. Three years later, Ferdinand was arrested for
Nalundasan's murder. A year later, after having graduated
from law school, he was found guilty of the crime. While
in jail Marcos spent six months writing his own appeal for
a new trial. When the Supreme Court finally took up
Marcos's appeal in 1940, the judge in charge (apparently
influenced by Judge Chua) threw out the case. Marcos
was a free man. The next day, he returned to the Supreme
MILITARY LIFE
• Marcos emerged from World War II with a reputation as
the greatest Filipino resistance leader of the war and the
most decorated soldier in the U.S. armed forces. However,
he appeared to have spent the war on both sides, lending
support to both the Japanese and the United States. In
early 1943 in Manila (the capital of the Philippines),
Marcos created a "secret" resistance organization called
Ang Mga Maharlika that he claimed consisted of agents
working against the Japanese. In fact, the group
consisted of many criminals—forgers, pickpockets,
gunmen, and gangsters—hoping to make money in the
wartime climate.
POLITICAL LIFE
• Marcos was reelected twice, and in 1959 he was elected
to the Philippine Senate. He was also the Liberal Party's
vice-president from 1954 to 1961, when he successfully
managed Diosdado Macapagal's (1911–1997) run for the
Philippine presidency. As part of his arrangement with
Marcos, Macapagal was supposed to step aside after one
term to allow Marcos to run for the presidency. When
Macapagal did not do this, Marcos joined the opposition
Nationalist Party and became their candidate in the 1965
election against Macapagal and easily won. Marcos was
now president of the Philippines.
POLITICAL LIFE
• In December 1948 a magazine editor published four articles
on Marcos's war experiences, causing Marcos's reputation to
grow. In 1949, campaigning on promises to get veterans'
benefits for two million Filipinos, Marcos ran as a Liberal
Party candidate for a seat in the Philippine House of
Representatives. He won with 70 percent of the vote.
POLITICAL LIFE
• In 1969 Marcos became the first Philippine president to win a
second term. However, not all Filipinos were happy with his
presidency
• Three years later, facing growing student protest and a crumbling
economy, Marcos declared martial law, a state of emergency in
which military authorities are given extraordinary powers to
maintain order. Marcos's excuse for declaring martial law was the
growing revolutionary movement of the Communist New People's
Army, which opposed his government.
FAMILY LIFE
• Marcos wed singer and beauty
queen Imelda Romualdez in 1954
after an 11-day courtship, with the
couple going on to have three
children: Maria Imelda "Imee" (b.
1955), Ferdinand "Bongbong"
Marcos Jr. (b. 1957) and Irene (b.
1960). The Marcoses later adopted
a fourth child, Aimee.
FINAL YEARS
• The Marcos regime began to collapse after the August 1983
assassination (political killing) of Benigno S. Aquino Jr. (1933–
1983), who had been Marcos's main political rival. Aquino was shot
and killed when he arrived at the Manila airport after three years in
the United States. The killing enraged Filipinos, as did authorities'
claim that the murder was the work of a single gunman. A year later,
a civilian investigation brought charges against a number of soldiers
and government officials, but in 1985 none of them were found
guilty. Nevertheless, most Filipinos believe that Marcos was
involved in Aquino's killing.
FINAL YEARS
• Marcos next called for a "snap [sudden] election" to be held early in
1986. In that election, which was marked by violence and charges of
fraud, Marcos's opponent was Aquino's widow, Corazon Aquino.
When the Philippine National Assembly announced that Marcos was
the winner, a rebellion in the Philippine military, supported by
hundreds of thousands of Filipinos marching in the streets, forced
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos to flee the country.
FINAL YEARS
• Marcos asked for U.S. aid but was given nothing more than
an air force jet, which flew him and Imelda to Hawaii. He
remained there until his death on September 28, 1989. The
Marcoses had taken with them more than twenty-eight
million cash in Philippine currency. President Aquino's
administration said this was only a small part of the
Marcoses' illegally gained wealth.
“I often wonder
what I will be
remembered in
history for. Scholar?
Military hero?
Builder?”