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Ferdinand Edralin Marcos
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| Birth date | September 11, 1917, |
| Death date | September 28, 1989 |
| Place | Philippines |
| Alias | Macoy |
| Occupation | President of the Republic of the Philippines |
| Category | President |
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Biography :: Contributions ::
Famous quotes ::
Achievements
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Ferdinand E. Marcos, born September 11, 1917, was the eldest of the four children of Mariano Marcos and Josefa Edralin.
Mariano Marcos was a self-disciplined and ambitious man who graduated young from a Manila teaching school who later became a schoolmaster in Laoag, Ilocos Norte. He plunged into politics and was twice elected as Congressman. Josefa Edralin was a landowner’s daughter and a onetime town beauty who herself, chose to teach. While Mariano immersed himself in politics, Josefa took care of their children, Ferdinand, Pacifico, Elizabeth and Fortuna.
thetwoleaders.article1.image1.jpg (14975 bytes)Fructuoso Edralin, Ferdinand’s maternal grandfather, was a strong influence. The old man regaled him with stories of the 1896 Revolution, of the Ilocano heroes he could only read about in schoolbooks. These tales were to instill into him a passionate concern for his country and an ambition to write history himself in his own time.
Marcos attended college at the University of the Philippines. His record of excellence went beyond the classroom. He won honors in the University boxing, swimming and wrestling teams. He joined the newly-formed ROTC and rose to the rank of cadet major. He won the first gold medal offered by General MacArthur for proficiency in military science. His baritone oratory enlivened the school debating team. He became the most bemedaled debater, winning the President Quezon Medal and was awarded the University President’s medal for obtaining the highest scholastic average over the full course of his college work.
The demands on the student’s time of leadership and sports took their toll. He lost his scholarship. Ferdinand went home to the province to ask money for tuition from his grandmother.
At that time, his father lost the Congressional seat twice to Julio Nalundasan. The new elections pitted them against each other once more and Mariano Marcos lost. Three nights after the elections, Nalundasan was killed by a sniper. The Marcoses were the main suspects.
A few days before the Christmas of 1938, Marcos sat at his evening review classes. In a few months he was to graduate and the honor of being awarded magna cum laude awaited him. Constabulary soldiers broke into his room and arrested him on the charge of killing Nalundasan. The coming trial was a national sensation. In the dark cell of the Laoag jail, Marcos mustered enough courage and energy to study for his coming bar exams. Outside the jail, he organized his own defense in the courts.
Defeated in the lower courts, he appealed to the Supreme Court. Though technically still not a lawyer, he obtained permission to argue his own defense. As he contradicted the testimony of the state witness, newspaper headlines announced his topping the examinations—with the highest marks ever achieved in the history of the Philippine bar. A short while later, the Supreme Court acquitted him.
During World War II
Marcos was called to arms three weeks before Pearl Harbor and spent the first days of the war as combat intelligence officer of the 21st Infantry Division. He was among the last troops to cross into Bataan.
thetwoleaders.article1.image2.jpg (18224 bytes)There, the Fil-American troops braced for a last stand against an invasion force of 85,000 men. Though all around them the last outposts of Western power in Southeast Asia were falling one by one, the defenders of Bataan and the nearby island-fortress of Corregidor held on through the summer of 1942, denying the Japanese easy access to the strategic South Pacific, from where the massive Allied counterattack was eventually to come.
In mid-January, Lieutenant Macros, accompanied by three eighteen-year-old recruits, penetrated behind the Japanese lines, killed more than 50 of the enemy and destroyed the deadly mortars that pinned down General Mateo Capinpin’s 21st Division. He was later captured and tortured yet escaped to rally elements of various divisions in a six-day running battle on the banks of two Bataan rivers that threw the enemy back. For this he was promoted captain and recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The last days of Bataan, Captain Marcos spent guiding the American and Filipino officers chosen to lead guerrilla resistance through the Japanese lines. Ironically captured when he himself tried to escape the fallen fortress, he walked the Death March to the prison camp in Capas, Tarlac. He spent four months there overcome with jaundice, dysentery and malaria. His spirit never broke.
Released in early August 1942, he was soon imprisoned again, this time at Fort Santiago, the notorious Manila prison chamber. He was tortured for eight days to tell where the guerrilla leaders he had escorted through the Bataan lines had burrowed but he refused to say a word. Finally he led his captors to an ambush in Mt. Banahaw and escaped to join the guerrillas.
He spent the next two year fighting in the hills, trying to unite the divided guerrilla bands into one disciplined force against the Japanese. His name became renowned as on of the finest guerrilla leaders of Luzon.
Though only 27, Marcos had set records for courage and earned himself 28 medals at the end of the war. He spent the last days of the war as civil affairs officer of Northern Luzon. He was in command of the entire Ilocos region, which was to be his political base as frHe served as 3rd lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary Reserve in 1937
* A budget for National Self-reliance : The President's Budget Message, September 21, 1976
* Achievement: The Incontestible Factor: The Marcos Years 1966-1971 (1971)
* An Introduction to the Politics of Transition (1978)
* An Ideology for Filipinos (1983)
* Ang Demokratikong Rebolusyon sa Pilipinas (The Democratic Revolution in the Philippines) (1977)
* Challenge and Response (1970)
* Demokrasya: Rebolusyon ng Ating Panahon (Today's Revolution: Democracy) (1971)
* Essays on Aspects of Philippine Development Toward the New Society (1974)
* Five Years of the New Society (1978)
* In Search of Alternatives: The Third World in an Age of Crisis (1980)
* Isang Ideolohiya Para sa Pilipino (One Ideology for Filipino) (1980)
* Limang Taon ng Bagong Lipunan (Five Years of the New Society) (1978)
* Marcos' Notes for the Cancun Summit, 1981 (1981)
* Nakatipontiponan Dagiti Dandaniw, Dallot, Sarindaniw, Salaysay, Sarita, Drama, Kankanta, Babaniw (1978)
* National Discipline: The Key to Our Future (1970)
* New Filipinism: The Turning Point (1969)
* Notes on the New Society of the Philippines (1973)
* Notes on the New Society of the Philippines II: The Rebellion of the Poor (1976)
* Progress and Martial Law (1981)
* Report to the Nation, 1973 (1973)
* Strength Through Crisis, Growth in Freedom (1972)
* Tadhana: The History of the Filipino People (Destiny: The History of the Filipino People) (1980)
* The Democratic Revolution in the Philippines (1974)
* The Epic of Nation-Building (1967)
* The Four-Year Development Plan of the Philippines (1973)
* The New Philippine Republic: A Third World Approach to Democracy (1982)
* The Philippines' Stake in Vietnam (1966)
* The Third World Challenge (1976)
* The UN: 40 Years After (1985)
* Today's Revolution: Democracy (1971)
* Toward a New Partnership: The Filipino Ideology (1983)
* Towards a Filipino Ideology (1979)
* Towards the New Society (1977)
Source wikipedia""He graduated cum laude at the University of the Philippines
Top-notcher of the Philippine bar examinations on 1939.
Military career
During World War II, Marcos served in the Philippine Armed Forces as the combat intelligence officer of the 21st Infantry Division. In mid-January of 1942, Lieutenant Marcos, accompanied by three 18 year old recruits, penetrated behind the Japanese lines, killed more than 50 of the enemy and destroyed the deadly mortars that pinned down General Mateo Capinpin’s 21st Division. He was later captured and tortured yet escaped to rally elements of various divisions in a six-day running battle on the banks of two Bataan rivers that threw the enemy back. For this he was promoted to the rank of captain and recommended for the Medal of Honor. Captured by the Japanese, he survived the Bataan Death March towards Central Luzon and then escaped.
He was awarded with medals as an officer though his biography written by Hartzell Spence greatly exaggerated the truth. Marcos' subsequent claims of being an important leader in the Filipino guerrilla resistance movement were a central factor in his later political success, but U.S. government archives later revealed that he actually played little or no part in anti-Japanese activities during the war. Marcos reportedly started out fighting with President Quezon's Own Guerrillas (PQOG) in southern Luzon.
""Elect me as your congressman today, and I promise an Ilocano president in twenty years
* Of what good is democracy if it is not for the poor?
o Source: "Notes on the New Society"
* My countrymen, as of the twenty-third of this month, I signed Proclamation #1081 placing the entire Philippines under Martial Law.
o Source: Televised speech on the proclamation of Martial Law, September 21, 1972
* I have listened to you, to our people. I have heard your doubts, your anxieties, nay, outright opposition to the lifting of Martial Law. And I have prayed to the Almighty for guidance. And it is after deliberate, sober judgment and soul-searching that I come before you and say, it is now time to terminate martial law.
* I pray now and I ask you to pray with me, as I prayed eight years ago, that I am doing, that we are doing, the right thing by our people; for the end of martial law does not mean the end of our efforts, of our needed reforms, of our struggles, of our sacrifices. The passing of martial law does not necessarily carry with it the passing of all the burdens especially the heavy ones. There will be more tests, for our capacity, for our resiliency, for our strength as a people. I say, we have just begun.
o Source: Speech proclaiming the termination of the state of Martial law, Heroes Hall, Malacañang, 17 January 1981
* We cannot and we will not negotiate with terrorists. We have nothing but contempt for them. To conciliate differences with these people without them changing their objectives is to condemn our Republic to ultimate strangulation and death.
o Source: Extemporaneous remarks during the Meeting with the Leaders of Regions I and II, Mansion House, Baguio City, 15 March 1981
* When authoritarianism is no longer necessary to protect the welfare of the people, I will be the first to move for its dismantling. But the easy, casual wave of the hand dismissing the dangers that confront the worsening world situation and us is not for me. It is for those who insist that I dismantle martial law against my best judgment but, legally and morally, cannot be held liable for any Kampuchean-like tragedy that would be fall our people if I followed their advice. But I would be liable. I would be called all kinds of names. I would be called stupid, naïve and obstinate. History and our people would hold me accountable not only perhaps for lack of wisdom, but for lack of courage if I followed such advice.
o Source: Remarks at the inauguration of the Philippines Columbian Association's New Clubhouse Complex, Plaza Dilao, Manila, 14 December 1979
* No matter how strong and dedicated a leader may be, he must find root and strength amongst the people. He alone cannot save a nation. He may guide, he may set the tone, he may dedicate himself and risk his life, but only the people may save themselves.
o Source: Address at the launching of the Mabuhay Ang Pilipino Movement, Malacañang, 30 November 1972
* I was reminded as I was reviewing my life, that I have been in too many conflicts, too many wars, political battles, military battles, civil strifes in government. And always one lesson stands out and that is, those whom you fight most passionately often turn out to be your best friends.
o Source: Extemporaneous speech at the Sixth Centennial Celebration of Islam in the Philippines, 10 June 1980
* The foundation upon which our nation stands is much richer and firmer than the sympathies that may occasionally divide us. And we never know this more truly than in Christmas time. In good times or in bad, under clear skies or under the shadow of uncertainty, the Christmas message is the imperishable one of joy, hope and brotherhood.
o Source: Christmas message to overseas Filipinos, 25 December 1979
Source wikipedia
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