Marcos and his failure to provide for an orderly political succession

On Sept. 21, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and ruled as dictator through presidential decrees. He was elected president in 1965 and reelected in 1969.

On Jan. 17, 1981, he lifted martial law and replaced it with a parliamentary government with the Batasang Pambansa (or a unicameral National Assembly) to pass laws. When he declared a snap presidential election in 1986 to gain a national vote of confidence under this setup, Mrs. Corazon Aquino was able to challenge him.

As the votes were being counted, the EDSA People Power uprising forced Marcos into political exile and brought Mrs. Aquino to the presidency.

The quotes below are excerpts that I reprint fully from my recent book, Cesar Virata: Life and Times Through Four Decades of

Philippine Economic History, University of the Philippines Press, 2014, pp. 352-354. (Note: Cesar Virata became prime minister only after the lifting of martial law.)

For ease of reading, I revise these quotes by breaking the paragraphs into shorter ones and introducing short headers to guide the discourse. Martial law changed the institutional framework of political contests. The formal opposition that used to be lodged in the Congress and the Senate was considerably weakened with the abolition of both chambers. Much of the opposition had therefore gone underground or undercurrent. New political factors complicated the framework of government.

Election. When Marcos took hold of the nation’s political agenda from 1965 to the 1970s, he was in the prime of health. As a political leader, he guided the nation through dangerous times and had managed to make sound decisions that helped to control the nation’s destiny.

Towards the second half of the 1970s, three factors made his control of events more difficult. Some was due to political mistakes he made. His failing health might have been a cause of these mistakes.

As he began to assess his mortality, he had to deal with the problem of succession. The most important mistake was that he felt he could postpone addressing this problem or micromanage its course.