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Martial Law Declared in the Philippines

1972 In the News
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In September 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos announced that he had placed the entirety of the Philippines under martial law. This marked the beginning of a 14-year period of one man rule which would effectively last until Marcos was exiled from the country on February 25, 1986. Even though the formal document proclaiming martial law – Proclamation No. 1081 – was formally lifted on January 17, 1981, Marcos retained virtually all of his powers as dictator until he was ousted by the EDSA Revolution.

Along with his declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines, he suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, meaning he could detain prisoners with no right of appeal.

This period in Philippine history is remembered for the administration’s record of human rights abuses, particularly targeting political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against the Marcos dictatorship. Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities, historians believe that the Marcos dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 77 ‘disappeared’, and 70,000 incarcerations.

The US continued strong support for Marcos until he was ousted from power by a revolution precipitated, in part, by the assassination of his strongest political opposition, Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.

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