Martial law under Ferdinand Marcos
At 7:15 p.m. on September 23, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos announced on television that he had placed the Philippines under martial law,[1][2] stating he had done so in response to the "communist threat" posed by the newly founded Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the sectarian "rebellion" of the Muslim Independence Movement (MIM). Opposition figures of the time (such as Lorenzo Tañada, Jose W. Diokno, and Jovito Salonga) accused Marcos of exaggerating these threats and using them as an excuse to consolidate power and extend his tenure beyond the two presidential terms allowed by the 1935 constitution.[3] Marcos' signed Proclamation No. 1081 on September 21, 1972, marking the beginning of a fourteen-year period of one-man rule which effectively lasted until Marcos was exiled from the country on February 25, 1986.[4][5] Proclamation No. 1081 was formally lifted on January 17, 1981, although Marcos retained essentially all of his powers as dictator until he was ousted in February 1986.[6][7]
This nine-year period in Philippine history is remembered for the Marcos administration's record of human rights abuses,[8][9] particularly targeting political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against the Marcos dictatorship.[10] Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities,[11] historians believe that the Marcos dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 737 "disappeared", and 70,000 incarcerations.[11][12][13]: 16 After Marcos was ousted, government investigators discovered that the declaration of martial law had also allowed the Marcoses to hide secret stashes of unexplained wealth that various courts[6] later determined to be "of criminal origin".[14]
While Marcos' presidency began in late 1965,[15] this article is limited to the period in which he exercised dictatorial powers under martial law[1] and the period where he continued to wield those powers despite lifting the martial law proclamation in 1981.[16][17]
Proclamation No. 2045[edit]
On January 17, 1981, Marcos issued Proclamation No. 2045, which formally lifted the proclamation of martial law, but retained many of his powers. The lifting was timed to coincide with Pope John Paul II's visit to the Philippines and with the inauguration of new U.S. president and Marcos ally Ronald Reagan.[117] Reacting to the announcement, former president Diosdado Macapagal, who at the time was the leading member of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization, said that the lifting of martial law after eight years was "in name only, but not in fact". Marcos reacted to criticism by telling the national assembly, "The opposition members want only to save their individual skins against national interests."[17]
Amendment No. 6 to the new 1973 constitution allowed him to continue making laws, and the decrees issued during martial law were carried forward after the lifting of Proclamation No. 1081. He also retained the right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for "crimes related to subversion, insurrection, rebellion, and also conspiracy to commit such crimes."[117]
Human rights abuses continued.[88]