Ferdinand Marcos: Greed, Guns, and Gold in the Philippines — Transcript

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1. 0:00this video is brought to you by policy
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7. 0:14his name is synonymous with ostentatious
8. 0:17corruption
9. 0:17for 20 years ferdinand marcos ruled the
10. 0:19philippines first as its democratically
11. 0:22elected president
12. 0:23then as its iron-fisted dictator
13. 0:26at home his regime was defined by its
14. 0:29authoritarianism during the years of
15. 0:31martial law
16. 0:32it's estimated around 3 000 political
17. 0:34prisoners were murdered while another 40
18. 0:36000 were tortured to the rest of the
19. 0:38world though there was one major theme
20. 0:39of the marcos years
21. 0:40corruption corruption on a scale so
22. 0:43eye-watering history
23. 0:45has rarely seen anything like it as
24. 0:47absolute ruler of his country marcos and
25. 0:49his wife imelda plundered the state
26. 0:51treasury
27. 0:51using public funds to buy everything
28. 0:53from luxury villas to physicize diamonds
29. 0:55to
30. 0:56a thousand pairs of designer shoes all
31. 0:58told they're thought to have stolen
32. 1:00five billion dollars from the
33. 1:02philippines at a time when millions were
34. 1:04going hungry and underfunded hospitals
35. 1:06couldn't afford anesthetic today
36. 1:08biographics is investigating the story
37. 1:10of how one man managed to turn
38. 1:11an entire nation into his personal piggy
39. 1:14bank
40. 1:16[Music]
41. 1:21in later years ferdinand marcos liked to
42. 1:22boast about his pre-presidential
43. 1:24achievements how he'd won
44. 1:26more medals than any other guerrilla
45. 1:27fighter resisting the japanese how
46. 1:29he'd been the greatest marksman in the
47. 1:30history of the rotc
48. 1:32but there was one part of his cv the
49. 1:34dictator had always kept quiet
50. 1:36that in addition to his expensive
51. 1:37education and sparkling law career
52. 1:40he was also a convicted murderer
53. 1:42ferdinand emmanuel israeli marcos was
54. 1:44born on september the 11th 1917
55. 1:46in el jos norte a northerly province
56. 1:49known for its tobacco plantations while
57. 1:51life for many in the area was hard the
58. 1:52future dictator was brought
59. 1:54up in relative comfort his mother came
60. 1:56from a land-owning family while his
61. 1:58father mariano was a local politician
62. 2:01at least that's the official story for
63. 2:02decades there have been rumors that the
64. 2:04boy's godfather a judge named ferdinand
65. 2:06juan
66. 2:07was his real dad and these rumors were
67. 2:09fueled by the money hua lavished on the
68. 2:11family regardless of his true
69. 2:13heritage though marcos always stood
70. 2:15loyally by the man that he called father
71. 2:17it was a trait that
72. 2:18would soon land him in some serious hot
73. 2:20water in 1925 mariano won election to
74. 2:22the house of representatives of the
75. 2:24philippines then a part of the insular
76. 2:26government
77. 2:26at the time the philippines was a u.s
78. 2:28colony swiped from spain at the end of
79. 2:30the spanish-american war but
80. 2:32with its own legislature for internal
81. 2:34matters since it was based in manila the
82. 2:36family moved to the capital there marcos
83. 2:38settled into the privileged life of a
84. 2:40politician's son
85. 2:41it ended a good school took up hobbies
86. 2:43like boxing and shooting
87. 2:44even when mariano lost his seat in 1932
88. 2:47the now teenaged boy stayed on
89. 2:48studying law at the university of the
90. 2:50philippines there as part of the reserve
91. 2:52officer's training corps or rotc
92. 2:54he became one of the country's star
93. 2:56marksmen and yes
94. 2:57that fact is going to be significant in
95. 3:001935 the us altered the colony status
96. 3:02granting further autonomy
97. 3:04importantly this meant the creation of a
98. 3:05new national assembly the
99. 3:07assembly that mariano was determined to
100. 3:09be a part of that september marcus's dad
101. 3:11went up against julia nellanderson for
102. 3:14their district seat to the family's
103. 3:15shock mariano lost nellanderson's
104. 3:18supporters celebrated by having the
105. 3:19marcos family name engraved on a coffin
106. 3:21that they dragged through the streets
107. 3:23but it wouldn't be mariano who needed
108. 3:25that wooden box just two days later on
109. 3:27september 20th nolenson was
110. 3:29brushing his teeth at home when he was
111. 3:30shot through the window and killed with
112. 3:33a single
113. 3:3322-caliber bullet it was the sort of
114. 3:35assassination only a trained marksman
115. 3:37could have pulled off
116. 3:38the sort of person who spent hours each
117. 3:41day
118. 3:41practicing on the range a person like
119. 3:44ferdinand marcos
120. 3:46arrested for nonsense murder marcos was
121. 3:48convicted in 1939 and handed a sentence
122. 3:50of 10 to 17 years
123. 3:52while in jail he kept up his law studies
124. 3:54soon acing the bar
125. 3:55exam when it came time for the supreme
126. 3:57court to hear his appeal marcus decided
127. 3:58to represent himself
128. 4:00it was a decision that would make his
129. 4:02career in court marcos blew everyone
130. 4:04away with his speaking skills
131. 4:05his charisma and his grasp of legal
132. 4:07knowledge at one point he admitted he
133. 4:09knew the law so well that he could
134. 4:11recite the constitution backwards then
135. 4:13proceeded to do just that a stunt which
136. 4:15the reporters ate up by the time the
137. 4:17court ruled in october 1940 they were
138. 4:19eager to overturn his conviction
139. 4:21but not because they thought he was
140. 4:22innocent as justice jose b
141. 4:24laurel argued the commonwealth would
142. 4:26need such brilliant young men once freed
143. 4:28from american rule the case turned
144. 4:30marcus into a celebrity in manila a hero
145. 4:32to the sort of clients that he now
146. 4:34represented at his dad's law firm but
147. 4:36the brilliant young man wasn't finished
148. 4:38yet
149. 4:38within 25 years he'd have gone from
150. 4:40promising wunderkind
151. 4:42to leader of his country
152. 4:44[Music]
153. 4:50in the end marcus's work in mariano's
154. 4:52law firm lasted barely a year
155. 4:53on december 8 1941 japan invaded the
156. 4:56philippines opening a whole new front in
157. 4:58world war ii what happened next depends
158. 5:01on who you talked to according to his
159. 5:02supporters marcus's wartime exploits
160. 5:04were
161. 5:05basically asian rambo captured by the
162. 5:08japanese he survived the infamous bataan
163. 5:10death match only to be tortured at camp
164. 5:12o'donnell one of the
165. 5:13pacific's deadliest pow camps but rather
166. 5:15than succumb
167. 5:16marcos escaped fleeing into the
168. 5:18mountains from where he proceeded to
169. 5:20rain hell down on the occupying army as
170. 5:22one of the highest decorated guerrilla
171. 5:23fighters in the philippines marcos
172. 5:25coordinated with u.s intelligence to
173. 5:27help america recapture the islands
174. 5:28although his father was executed by the
175. 5:30japanese the young lawyer continued to
176. 5:32fight earning a reputation so mythic the
177. 5:34peasants believed he could deflect
178. 5:36bullets or
179. 5:36vanish into smoke this version of the
180. 5:38story ends like the final scenes of a
181. 5:40new hope with uncle sam as princess
182. 5:42leia gratefully showering medals down
183. 5:45onto
184. 5:45marx's hunky han solo but there is
185. 5:48another version aversion that claims
186. 5:49marcos did
187. 5:50none of this that the u.s has no record
188. 5:52of ever awarding him any medals and that
189. 5:54mark will spend the war not fighting but
190. 5:56making a killing on the black market
191. 5:58in this version even mariano's death is
192. 6:00different executed for
193. 6:01collaborating with the japanese in the
194. 6:03end though it doesn't really matter
195. 6:05which one of these was true
196. 6:06marco simply used the full force of his
197. 6:08charisma to make everyone believe the
198. 6:10version most
199. 6:11flattering to him the result was a
200. 6:12nation felt eternally
201. 6:14in his debt in 1946 just after the u.s
202. 6:17granted the philippines full
203. 6:18independence
204. 6:19marcos became a special assistant to the
205. 6:21new president opening up
206. 6:22endless networking opportunities at the
207. 6:24same time he relaunched his career as a
208. 6:26lawyer now trading on his war hero
209. 6:28reputation to
210. 6:29attract big clients but all this was
211. 6:31really just a stepping stone a single
212. 6:33step forward on the path ferdinand
213. 6:35marcos
214. 6:36had already laid out for himself the
215. 6:38path to absolute power
216. 6:40we can see this from the moment he
217. 6:41launched his political career in 1949
218. 6:44running on a liberal party ticket for
219. 6:46the lower house marcos told voters in
220. 6:48his native area
221. 6:48if you are electing me just to get my
222. 6:51services for the pittance of 7500 pesos
223. 6:54a year
224. 6:55don't vote for me at all this is only a
225. 6:56first step elect me a congressman now
226. 6:59and i pledge you an ilocano president in
227. 7:0220 years
228. 7:03in fact it would take even less time
229. 7:05than that elected in no small part due
230. 7:07to his war record marcos became a
231. 7:09fixture
232. 7:09on manila's political scene he was young
233. 7:12wealthy a staunch reformer
234. 7:14and a powerful lawyer now all he needed
235. 7:16was a wife worthy of his ambition
236. 7:18in 1954 marcos met imelda romualdez a
237. 7:22miss manila winner from an obscenely
238. 7:24well-connected family
239. 7:25after a courtship of just 11 days they
240. 7:27married marcos gifted his bride an 11
241. 7:29carat diamond one carrot for each day
242. 7:32that he'd known her from that day forth
243. 7:33imelda marcos would be infamous in her
244. 7:35own right
245. 7:36but we'll save her story for a potential
246. 7:38future video but now all we'll do is
247. 7:40note that the couple soon had children
248. 7:42two of whom daughter and me and
249. 7:44son bongbong would become almost as
250. 7:46notorious as their dad
251. 7:47by 1963 ferdinand marcos seemed to have
252. 7:49it all he was now president of the
253. 7:51senate one of the most powerful posts in
254. 7:53the nation
255. 7:54he was a darling of the trade unions a
256. 7:56passionate advocate
257. 7:57land reform and one of the liberal
258. 7:59party's rising stars
259. 8:00but even this couldn't sate the appetite
260. 8:02of the ambitious boy from
261. 8:04illicos norte not when he could still go
262. 8:07higher not when marcos could run for
263. 8:10president
264. 8:12[Music]
265. 8:17so here's the problem with marcus's plan
266. 8:18to run for president on the liberal
267. 8:20party ticket
268. 8:21the liberal party already had a
269. 8:22president but marcos wasn't about to let
270. 8:24a silly little thing like his whole
271. 8:26party saying
272. 8:27bro seriously our guy's already in
273. 8:29charge stop him from running
274. 8:31in 1965 he switched parties becoming the
275. 8:33nominee for his former rivals
276. 8:35the national easters under the slogan
277. 8:37this nation can be great again sounds
278. 8:39familiar
279. 8:40he went on to trounce the incumbent
280. 8:42president winning nearly 52 percent of
281. 8:44the vote and just like that ferdinand
282. 8:45marcos was the philippines head honcho
283. 8:47to be fair the writing had been on the
284. 8:49wall from the moments that had won the
285. 8:51national easter's nomination
286. 8:53so far no post-independence president
287. 8:55had managed to win a second term
288. 8:57little could anyone have known that
289. 8:58marcos would wind up serving as long as
290. 9:00his five
291. 9:01predecessors combined at first the
292. 9:03election of ferdinand marcos didn't seem
293. 9:05like a major historic shift in his first
294. 9:07term the new president did some
295. 9:09predictable stuff like backing the us in
296. 9:11the vietnam war and some controversial
297. 9:12stuff like sending 2 000 filipino troops
298. 9:15to help he also did some populist stuff
299. 9:17like cracking down on corruption and
300. 9:19some useful stuff like repairing roads
301. 9:21and sewage systems for anyone alive at
302. 9:23the time it would have felt less like
303. 9:24the beginning of a dictatorship and more
304. 9:26like well business as usual aside from
305. 9:29the first couple's ostentatious
306. 9:30lifestyle people called them the
307. 9:31filipino kennedys there was
308. 9:33nothing to really mark marcos out from
309. 9:36previous one town wonders
310. 9:37until that is he won his second term
311. 9:39marcus's 1969 re-election
312. 9:41hit political circles like a thunderbolt
313. 9:43in an era when no one got a second term
314. 9:46here was ferdinand marcos
315. 9:47still enjoying the goodwill of the
316. 9:48people at least that's how the
317. 9:50president's office spun it
318. 9:52the opposition claimed that marcos had
319. 9:53used intimidation and violence to get
320. 9:55votes that he had spent state funds on
321. 9:57his campaign that he was already
322. 9:58planning an illegal third term
323. 10:00as 1970 dawned it was still just about
324. 10:02possible to look at marcos
325. 10:04and see an ordinary politician one who
326. 10:06played dirty
327. 10:07but wasn't on a par with some latin
328. 10:09american autocrat
329. 10:11sadly that illusion wouldn't survive the
330. 10:12oncoming storm known today as the first
331. 10:14quarter storm that political cyclone
332. 10:16basically did for the philippines
333. 10:18what the galveston hurricane did for
334. 10:20texas as marcos began his second term
335. 10:22insane social currents were swirling
336. 10:24creating a highly volatile cocktail
337. 10:26there was brewing resentment of filipino
338. 10:27involvement in the vietnam war a growing
339. 10:29pushback against u.s imperialism
340. 10:31upheaval on campuses cripplingly low
341. 10:34wages for the poor were causing problems
342. 10:36as were upcoming price hikes out in
343. 10:38rural areas a fledgling communist
344. 10:39insurgency was taking hold
345. 10:41when marcos delivered his state of the
346. 10:42nation address on january 27 1970
347. 10:45it was the trigger for all of those
348. 10:46resentments to finally explode
349. 10:48on january the 30th a tsunami of
350. 10:50protesters descended on the president's
351. 10:52malacanang palace determined to break
352. 10:54inside
353. 10:54protesters tried to scale the walls
354. 10:56guards opened fired someone drove a
355. 10:58truck at the front gates
356. 10:59eventually the demonstrators were driven
357. 11:01back to mendiola
358. 11:02there the police attacked killing five
359. 11:05in the aftermath marcos declared the
360. 11:06protests an attack on democracy
361. 11:08but the storm didn't end across february
362. 11:10and march manila streets boiled with
363. 11:12rage
364. 11:13there were running battles between
365. 11:14police and students bar bombings
366. 11:16reprisals by security forces
367. 11:18the us embassy had its lobby trashed
368. 11:20strikes and
369. 11:21mass protests paralyzed the capital it
370. 11:23was a howl of rage that depending on
371. 11:25your politics was either
372. 11:26a necessary release or a sign of the
373. 11:28coming communist takeover the storm
374. 11:30finally ebbed after march the 17th but
375. 11:32it didn't die the anger simply
376. 11:34hid below the surface just bubbling away
377. 11:37it seems ferdinand marcos recognized
378. 11:39this not long after the storm abated he
379. 11:41went to the military and asked them to
380. 11:42draw up hypothetical plans
381. 11:44preparation for if the worst happened
382. 11:46these plans were to implement martial
383. 11:48law across the philippines
384. 11:49within no time at all they were going to
385. 11:51move from the realm of hypothetical to
386. 11:53that of terrifying reality
387. 11:55now for a lot of people there is no more
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434. 13:17today's video
435. 13:24reading about the months leading up to
436. 13:25martial law today is like reading some
437. 13:27awful novel where the protagonists are
438. 13:29pulled inexorably towards disaster
439. 13:31each chapter brings some new radical
440. 13:34set-piece some
441. 13:34new tragedy the most tragic of which may
442. 13:37be the chapter
443. 13:38titled plaza miranda in august 1971 as
444. 13:41the liberal party gathered there to
445. 13:43unveil its newest candidates
446. 13:44someone threw two grenades onto the
447. 13:46stage the blasts ripped apart nine
448. 13:49people including a young girl and left
449. 13:50nearly a hundred with gruesome wounds
450. 13:52although the liberals blamed marcos the
451. 13:54president insisted the communist
452. 13:55insurgents were
453. 13:56behind the deaths two days later he
454. 13:58suspended the writ of habeas corpus
455. 14:00mass arrests followed but the chaos was
456. 14:02only just the beginning on march the
457. 14:0315th 1972 an incendiary device exploded
458. 14:06in manila rather than a one-off it was
459. 14:08the start of a bombing spree across the
460. 14:09capitals metro area
461. 14:11over the next six months twenty blasts
462. 14:12killed one person and injured forty
463. 14:14as disasters piled up barcos started
464. 14:16denouncing the opposition as communists
465. 14:19he started claiming he'd soon need
466. 14:20emergency powers to deal with the rising
467. 14:22tide of violence in the land
468. 14:24his rhetoric got so heated that popular
469. 14:26lawmaker benigo aquina jr better known
470. 14:28as ninoy claimed in the senate that had
471. 14:30found evidence of a secret plan to place
472. 14:32manila under martial law
473. 14:33sadly that knowledge came too late for
474. 14:35anyone to act on september 22nd
475. 14:37government minister juan ponce
476. 14:39relay was driving home when his car was
477. 14:41ambushed by communists and sprayed with
478. 14:43bullets it was a miracle that onreally
479. 14:45managed to get away
480. 14:46such a miracle in fact that most assumed
481. 14:48the attack was staged
482. 14:49still this was all the pretext that
483. 14:51marcos needed it's still a mystery
484. 14:52exactly when proclamation number 1081
485. 14:55was signed
486. 14:56implementing martial law some say marco
487. 14:58signed it immediately after the ambush
488. 15:00on
489. 15:00relay others say that it secretly signed
490. 15:03it the day before on september the 21st
491. 15:05since 21 is divisible by seven and
492. 15:07marcos was famously obsessed with that
493. 15:08number regardless of the timing though
494. 15:10the results were the same
495. 15:12as the clocktick midnight senator nimoy
496. 15:14aquino was arrested
497. 15:15and he was just the first over the early
498. 15:17hours of september 23 1972 some 400
499. 15:20journalists
500. 15:20students and lawmakers were rounded up
501. 15:22when the sun rose it was a country where
502. 15:24radios were broadcasting only static
503. 15:26tvs were blank all airline traffic had
504. 15:28been suspended and it was impossible to
505. 15:30place an international call the silence
506. 15:32continued until 3pm fueling wild rumors
507. 15:35finally it was broken by a terse
508. 15:36announcement the president would make a
509. 15:38speech at 7pm that evening families
510. 15:40gathered around their tv sets
511. 15:41all day long foreigners had been
512. 15:43arrested and local intellectuals
513. 15:45disappeared
514. 15:45by now everyone could guess what was
515. 15:47going on and their suspicions were
516. 15:49finally confirmed at 7 15.
517. 15:51on the nation's screens president marcos
518. 15:52solemly informed viewers that martial
519. 15:54law had been imposed
520. 15:56it was the end of the philippines as a
521. 15:58democracy over the coming months
522. 15:59laws would be written removing checks
523. 16:01and balances and concentrating power in
524. 16:03the hands of marcos
525. 16:04seventy thousand would be jailed without
526. 16:06trial for political crimes with another
527. 16:0735 to 40 000 tortured
528. 16:09over 3 250 people would be executed 77
529. 16:12percent of whom had their corpses
530. 16:14mutilated
531. 16:15and dumped on the streets as a warning
532. 16:17to others from this point on
533. 16:18there would be no justice in the land
534. 16:20there would be no law
535. 16:22there would only be ferdinand marcos
536. 16:30at first incredible as it seems martial
537. 16:32law was pretty popular
538. 16:34things have been so chaotic that many
539. 16:36welcomed the stability
540. 16:37violent street crime was reduced illegal
541. 16:39guns were seized the military
542. 16:41expanded to fight the communists nor did
543. 16:43marcos just focus on law and order when
544. 16:45the new 1973 constitution was
545. 16:47promulgated creating the poster prime
546. 16:49minister and giving it to marcos while
547. 16:50still allowing him to be president the
548. 16:52man who'd just killed democracy gave a
549. 16:55speech rallying against poverty in his
550. 16:57nation but while the new society's
551. 16:58stated aim was to help the poor in
552. 17:00reality marcos
553. 17:02mainly just helped himself successful
554. 17:04companies were snatched from their
555. 17:05owners turned over to
556. 17:06imelda's family members to use as their
557. 17:08private piggy banks known as crony
558. 17:10capitalism this
559. 17:11handing of assets over to friends would
560. 17:13cause a gigantic economic problem down
561. 17:15the road
562. 17:16but not before the first family made
563. 17:18themselves filthy rich
564. 17:20over the years of martial law the
565. 17:21marcuses are estimated to have stolen
566. 17:23five
567. 17:23billion dollars from the public purse
568. 17:25fifty private villas were built for the
569. 17:26couple ranging in
570. 17:28luxury from extravagance to would make
571. 17:30the sultan of brunei
572. 17:32blush up in iraqos norte a palace was
573. 17:34built to sign to rival the president's
574. 17:36official malacanang residence in
575. 17:38imelda's home of late the couple
576. 17:40commissioned a 13-bedroom villa each
577. 17:42room decorated with grand frescos
578. 17:44depicting scenes from imelda's life in
579. 17:46tacky detail their children too reaped
580. 17:48crony capitalism's rewards imee and
581. 17:50bongbong were sent abroad to expensive
582. 17:52schools with imi being gifted an entire
583. 17:5418th century country estate to live in
584. 17:56while studying at princeton
585. 17:57bongbong meanwhile arranged to have the
586. 18:00military evict 120 poor fisher families
587. 18:02from an island just so it could be
588. 18:03filled with exotic animals and turned
589. 18:05into his private hunting ground
590. 18:07this was an era when around 4 million
591. 18:08filipino children were so poor that they
592. 18:10couldn't even afford school
593. 18:12yet here was imelda using the state
594. 18:14budget to buy a thousand pairs of
595. 18:15designer shoes and
596. 18:16literal suitcases stuffed full of jewels
597. 18:19not that marcos didn't reinvest at least
598. 18:21some of his plundered loot in manila
599. 18:23huge sums of misappropriated cash were
600. 18:25used to build world-class specialized
601. 18:27hospitals
602. 18:28many of these came decked out almost
603. 18:29like hotels with things like upright
604. 18:31pianos to
605. 18:32entertain patients the trouble was these
606. 18:34specialist centers targeted only
607. 18:36diseases that
608. 18:37marcos was interested in or which were
609. 18:39fashionable to treat which is how manila
610. 18:41wound up with an expensive lung center
611. 18:43that saw
612. 18:44a handful of patients every year while
613. 18:45across the city much more needed
614. 18:47tuberculosis hospitals were so starved
615. 18:49of cash that patients were forced to
616. 18:50share
617. 18:50beds still the regime did at least bring
618. 18:53in land reform laws that allowed some
619. 18:54peasants to own their own small holdings
620. 18:56for the first time yet even this was
621. 18:58overshadowed by a drop in real wages and
622. 19:00an economy that soon began to sag
623. 19:01beneath the weight of
624. 19:03the first couple's cronies mismanaging
625. 19:04multiple companies but perhaps the most
626. 19:07damning fact is that the dictatorship
627. 19:08failed on its own
628. 19:10terms martial law was justified as a way
629. 19:12of fighting the fledgling communist
630. 19:13insurgency by the 1980s though that
631. 19:15insurgency hadn't just grown it had been
632. 19:17joined by a muslim separatist rebellion
633. 19:19in the south
634. 19:20in fact the only thing the death of
635. 19:22democracy seemed to have achieved
636. 19:24was making ferdinand marcos filthy rich
637. 19:26unfortunately for the dictator it
638. 19:28wouldn't be long before the rest of the
639. 19:29population realized what a crappy deal
640. 19:32this actually was
641. 19:39on august 21 1983 ninoy aquino stepped
642. 19:42down off the plane at manila airport
643. 19:44certain that his time had come
644. 19:45it was now a decade since he'd been
645. 19:47arrested by marcus's goons a decade in
646. 19:49which it endured imprisonment
647. 19:51a suspended death sentence and eventual
648. 19:53exile now with the economy in shambles
649. 19:55and rumors swirling about the dictator's
650. 19:56health the former senator had returned
651. 19:58to the philippines to
652. 19:59fight the democracy on his own turf
653. 20:01sadly he'd never get the chance
654. 20:03as benigo aquino stepped off the plane a
655. 20:05gunshot rang out the senator's head
656. 20:07jerked back blood splattered it was the
657. 20:09last assassination of the marcos era
658. 20:11another in a long line of bodies but
659. 20:13this time murder would have consequences
660. 20:15by the time of ninoy's death marcos's
661. 20:17grip on power was loosening after an
662. 20:19intense campaign by catholic leaders
663. 20:21martial law had been lifted in 1981
664. 20:23ahead of a visit by the pope but marcos
665. 20:25had refused to step down sure that his
666. 20:26international backers would continue to
667. 20:28support him as they always had with the
668. 20:30assassination of ninoy though
669. 20:31things were about to change now so far
670. 20:33in this video uncle sam has been
671. 20:35kind of hovering in the background like
672. 20:37a star-spangled ghost
673. 20:39ever since the days of lyndon b johnson
674. 20:40washington had poured money into keeping
675. 20:42the marcos regime afloat certain he was
676. 20:44a
677. 20:45bulwark against communism but with
678. 20:46aquino dead and millions protesting
679. 20:48uncle sam suddenly began to wonder why
680. 20:50he was wasting his time on this tin pot
681. 20:52tyrant
682. 20:53when where did this got back to marcos
683. 20:54he decided to act to show his foreign
684. 20:56benefactor that his people still loved
685. 20:58him in 1985 the dictator called an early
686. 21:00election fully intended to take the
687. 21:01results and rub them
688. 21:03in ronald reagan's face instead marcus
689. 21:05wound up pressing the
690. 21:07self-destruct button on his own career
691. 21:09the opposition's candidate was ninoy's
692. 21:11widow the popular
693. 21:12carrazzon aquino in fact she was so
694. 21:14popular that when the official results
695. 21:16showed a marcos landslide people refused
696. 21:18to believe them they attended corazon's
697. 21:19victory rally in their millions
698. 21:21needed her call to start a campaign of
699. 21:23civil disobedience
700. 21:24in the end the campaign would take
701. 21:26barely two weeks to achieve its goal on
702. 21:28february the 22nd 1986
703. 21:30marcus's old ally juan ponce and relay
704. 21:32abruptly threw his lot in
705. 21:34with corazon declaring that the ambush
706. 21:36on his car that had triggered the
707. 21:37martial law had been staged onrelay
708. 21:39joined the army deputy chief of staff in
709. 21:41calling for a coup before
710. 21:42barricading himself in a military base
711. 21:44when the army was sent to retake it
712. 21:46filipinos poured into the streets
713. 21:47forming a vast human shield unable to
714. 21:49crush the traitor without killing
715. 21:51thousands marcos retreated it was
716. 21:53effectively the end of his dictatorship
717. 21:55by february the 25th protests have
718. 21:56paralyzed the country
719. 21:58sensing which way the wind was blowing
720. 21:59the americans withdrew their support for
721. 22:01marcos the dictator was told that he
722. 22:02could accept u.s sponsored evacuation
723. 22:04and exile or take his chances
724. 22:06just hours earlier marcus had delivered
725. 22:08a speech vowing to remain in power for
726. 22:10another six years
727. 22:11now he was forced to swallow his pride
728. 22:13and accept the offer
729. 22:14that same night the now ex-president
730. 22:16imelda and their kids were airlifted out
731. 22:18of manila
732. 22:18they took with them millions of dollars
733. 22:20in looted goods a final
734. 22:22screw you to their countrymen but it
735. 22:24would be the last wound marcos would
736. 22:26ever inflict on the philippines
737. 22:28ferdinand marcos died three years later
738. 22:30in exile
739. 22:31in hawaii on september 28 1989.
740. 22:34at the moment of his death he was facing
741. 22:36federal charges of racketeering
742. 22:38back home his name was mud tarnished not
743. 22:40just by the assassination and revolution
744. 22:41but by revelations of all the money that
745. 22:43he and imelda had pilfered
746. 22:45it was a deserved fall one which
747. 22:47doubtless left the former dictator
748. 22:49feeling
749. 22:49extremely embittered yet it wasn't quite
750. 22:52the end
751. 22:53today some 30 years after his death
752. 22:55ferdinand marcos is
753. 22:56having an unlikely rehabilitation
754. 22:58current philippine president rodrigo
755. 23:00duerte has
756. 23:00openly embraced the strong man's memory
757. 23:03in 2016 even allowed marcos to be buried
758. 23:05in the cemetery of heroes the
759. 23:07philippines equivalent of arlington
760. 23:09imelda is still alive and still adored
761. 23:11by millions
762. 23:12umi is a senator while in 2016 bongbong
763. 23:15came within a hair's breadth of winning
764. 23:17the vice presidency
765. 23:18meanwhile a new generation born after
766. 23:20the return of democracy
767. 23:21beginning to express nostalgia for
768. 23:23martial law for a time when
769. 23:25so many believe the streets were safe
770. 23:27and
771. 23:28order reigned it's a remarkable
772. 23:30posthumous comeback for a dictator
773. 23:32deposed in a revolution especially one
774. 23:35so
775. 23:35flagrantly corrupt but then that's just
776. 23:38ferdinand marcos all over
777. 23:40throughout his life this was a man
778. 23:41blessed with the devil's luck someone
779. 23:43who
780. 23:44managed to literally get away with
781. 23:46murder with war profiteering with
782. 23:48crushing descent for two decades
783. 23:51wherever he is now up in heaven or in
784. 23:53the depths of hell
785. 23:54there's no doubt he's looking down on
786. 23:56his recent rehabilitation
787. 23:58and laughing
788. 24:00[Music]
789. 24:02so i really hope you found that video
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795. 24:11and thank you for watching
796. 24:20you