Marcos a ‘US-backed’ dictator with charisma

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MANILA, Nov 18, (AFP): Few leaders began their presidency with such promise and ended in such ignominy as the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos. Born in 1917 to a prominent political family in the rural north of the country, Marcos easily won the 1965 presidential elections — widely regarded as a fair contest — with an abundance of charisma and superb oratory skills. He could also credit his wife, beauty queen Imelda Marcos, who he married in 1954 and whose glamour and singing voice helped attract crowds to his campaign rallies.

The magnetic couple also proved irresistible to the United States, which during the time of the Vietnam War saw Marcos as an important ally in its efforts to quash the communist threat in Southeast Asia. Marcos was re-elected to a second four-year term in a landslide in 1969 but allegations of corruption and authoritarianism had already begun to cloud his presidency.

Then in 1972, to the shock of the nation, Marcos declared martial law, saying it was needed to save the country from communist insurgents. By doing so he could stay in power longer than the constitutionally mandated limit of eight years. With the continued backing of the United States, the Philippines’ former colonial ruler, Marcos ruthlessly moved to stamp out dissent. Television, radio stations and newspapers were only allowed to promote his “New Society”, so the public was fed a constant stream of praise for Marcos and his jetsetting wife, whose extravagance was a sharp contrast to the poverty of most Filipinos. Opposition politicians, including Marcos’ arch-critic, Senator Benigno Aquino, as well as student leaders and other dissidents, were thrown behind bars, as the Philippines descended into a climate of fear.

“The Marcos government appears, by any standard, exceptional for both the quantity and quality of its violence,” wrote American academic Alfred McCoy, one of the pre-eminent historians on the Philippines. McCoy said the regime’s security forces killed 3,257 people — many of the victims first abducted, then abused and finally murdered and dumped on a roadside in a warning to others. The astonishing comeback was sealed Friday when the dictator was finally buried at the national heroes’ cemetery, after the Supreme Court endorsed a decision by President Rodrigo Duterte, a friend of the Marcos family, to allow the burial.

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