[100] After World War II, the American government became preoccupied with the Marshall Plan, attempting to revive Western European economies, losing focus on the Philippines, which gained independence on July 4, 1946.

[112][113] Marcos developed close relations with Philippine military officers[111] and began expanding the armed forces by allowing loyal generals to stay in their positions past retirement age, or giving them government posts.

He was brought to then-Cavite Governor Delfin N. Montano, to whom he described the Jabidah massacre, saying that numerous Moro army recruits had been executed by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on March 18, 1968.

Other delegates later became influential political figures, including Hilario Davide Jr., Marcelo Fernan, Sotero Laurel, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Teofisto Guingona Jr., Raul Roco, Edgardo Angara, Richard Gordon, Margarito Teves, and Federico Dela Plana.

[179][180] On December 29, 1970, Philippine Military Academy instructor Lt. Victor Corpuz led New People's Army rebels in a raid on the PMA armory, capturing rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, a bazooka and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

[181] In 1972, China, which was then actively supporting and arming communist insurgencies in Asia as part of Mao Zedong's People's War Doctrine, transported 1,200 M-14 and AK-47 rifles aboard the MV Karagatan for the NPA to aid its campaign to defeat the government.

[182][183][184] A report by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that shortly after the presidential election, a group composed mostly of retired colonels and generals organized a revolutionary junta with the aim of discrediting and killing Marcos.

[205] Ruling by decree, he almost dissolved press freedom and other civil liberties, closed down Congress and the media, and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders and militant activists, including Benigno Aquino Jr., Jovito Salonga and Jose W.

The United States, which had provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, was crucial in buttressing Marcos's rule over the years,[231] Pre-Marcos, the Philippines had maintained a close relationship with Taiwan's Kuomintang-ruled Republic of China (ROC) government.

US President Jimmy Carter pressured the Marcos Administration to release Ninoy Aquino and to hold parliamentary elections to demonstrate that some "normalization" had begun after the declaration of martial law.

LABAN fielded 21 candidates for the Metro Manila area[237] including Ninoy, activist Jerry Barican, labor leader Alex Boncayao,[238] Neptali Gonzales, Teofisto Guingona Jr. Ramon Mitra Jr., Aquilino Pimentel Jr., journalist Napoleon Rama, publisher Alejandro Roces, and poet-playwright Francisco Rodrigo.

Upon his re-election to the presidency in 1981, Marcos was succeeded as prime minister by an American-educated leader and Wharton graduate, Cesar Virata, who was elected as an Assemblyman (Member of the Parliament) from Cavite in 1978.

Prior to his heart surgery, Ninoy, along with his two co-accused, NPA leaders Bernabe Buscayno (Commander Dante) and Lt. Victor Corpuz, were sentenced to death by a military commission on charges of murder, illegal possession of firearms and subversion.

Enrile and Ramos later abandoned Marcos, switched sides and sought protection behind the 1986 People Power Revolution, backed by fellow-American educated Eugenio Lopez Jr., Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, and the old political and economic elites.

[295] Throughout his stay in Hawaii, he and his family enjoyed a high life, living in a luxurious house in Makiki Heights, as Imelda entertained guests at parties,[296] while Filipinos back in the Philippines suffered under the debt Marcos incurred.

[300][301] More than a year after the revolution, it was revealed to the United States House Foreign Affairs subcommittee in 1987 that Marcos held an intention to return to the Philippines and overthrow the Aquino government.

Hirschfeld stated that Marcos said that he was negotiating with several arms dealers to purchase up to $18 million worth of weapons, including tanks and heat-seeking missiles, and enough ammunition to "last an army three months".

In June 1988 National Security Advisor Colin Powell recommended proceeding with indictments of the Marcoses, as he reviewed the cases as forwarded by United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Rudy Giuliani.

[316] Moments after, the younger Ferdinand eulogised his late father by stating, "Hopefully friends and detractors alike will look beyond the man to see what he stood for: his vision, his compassion and his total love of country".

[318] From 1993 to 2016, Marcos's remains were interred inside a refrigerated, frozen crypt in Batac, Ilocos Norte, where his son, Ferdinand Jr., and eldest daughter, Imee, became the local governor and congressional representative, respectively.

[322][323] On November 9, 2018, Imelda Marcos was found "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" by the Sandiganbayan of seven counts of graft for private organizations set up in Switzerland during her time as a government official from 1968 to 1986.

These included student activists such as Edgar Jopson and Rigoberto Tiglao,[340] farmers such as Bernabe Buscayno,[341] journalists such as Satur Ocampo,[342][343] legal political opponents such as Ninoy Aquino,[344] fellow candidates such as Alex Boncayao,[345][237] and priests and nuns.

[159] The various estimates of the scale of abuses include: Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP)[354] Amnesty International[355] Historian Alfred McCoy gives a figure of 3,257 recorded extrajudicial killings by the military from 1975 to 1985, 35,000 tortured and 70,000 incarcerated.

[159][362] In a document titled "Open Letter to the Filipino People", martial law martyr Edgar "Edjop" Jopson described them: "Safehouses usually have their windows always shut tight.

Leticia Ladlad, Hermon Lagman,[368] Mariano Lopez, Rodelo Manaog, Manuel Ontong, Florencio Pesquesa, Arnulfo Resus, Rosaleo Romano, Carlos Tayag, Emmanuel Yap,[371] Jan Quimpo,[368] Rizalina Ilagan, Christina Catalla, Jessica Sales and Ramon Jasul.

[381] The number of Moro victims killed by the Army, Philippine Constabulary, and the Ilaga (a government-sanctioned[382] terrorist cult notorious for cannibalism and land grabbing that served as members of the CHDF)[377] reached as high as 10,000 lives.

[387] Bongbong Marcos describes stories of human rights abuses as "self-serving statements by politicians, self-aggrandizement narratives, pompous declarations, and political posturing and propaganda.

[406] In 2012, a US Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit upheld a contempt judgement against Imelda and Bongbong for violating an injunction barring them from dissipating their assets, and awarded $353.6 million to human rights victims.

[412] The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' (ICIJ) exposé of offshore leaks accused Imee of hiding wealth in tax havens in the British Virgin Islands.

[427][435] According to Ricardo Manapat's book Some Are Smarter Than Others, which was one of the earliest to document details of the Marcos wealth,[436] lesser-known properties include gold and diamond investments in South Africa, banks and hotels in Israel, and various landholdings in Austria, London, and Rome.