President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) defeated retired general and World War II veteran Alejo Santos of the Nacionalista Party in a landslide victory.

Marcos would have served another six-year term ending in 1987, but it was cut short by the 1986 snap election that eventually resulted in his ouster in the People Power Revolution.

Although martial law has ended, Marcos retained all presidential decrees, legislative powers and the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.

The lifting of martial law was speculated to be due to the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, with whom Marcos wanted to have close relationship with and who was to be inaugurated only three days later, and the arrival of Pope John Paul II in the country.

In February, the Interim Batasang Pambansa (parliament) passed a constitutional amendment that changed the parliamentary system of government to a semi-presidential modeled on that of France.

The Nacionalista Party was then a moribund political entity because Marcos, who was elected twice before under its banner, had alternately lured and coerced the vast majority its members to his new Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.

Marcos won overwhelmingly,[1] but with people remembering the American colonial era and wanting a change from the martial law conditions, Cabangbang surprisingly got 4% of the vote.

Marcos was inaugurated on June 30, 1981, at the Quirino Grandstand, with then-United States Vice President George H. W. Bush in attendance.