The Conjugal Dictatorship (Primitivo Mijares • 1976): “In early October, 1972, when the President got hold of a report that the Supreme Court might invalidate the martial law proclamation because of flaws in the factual basis of the proclamation, he instructed me to publish a series of stories on the massing ‘by the thousands’ of New People’s Army rebels in the hills around Manila”

If Martial Law was proclaimed on September 21, why does Marcos write on September 22 as if it has not yet been made into law? Why does he wait two more nights before announcing it on television, with Enrile’s “ambush” happening conveniently before he tells the nation about Martial Law?

Sunday Express frontpage image from Project Gunita: Dante Ambrosio Collection—”These images are from scans done by Dr. Dante Ambrosio and used in his lectures about the Marcos Sr. dictatorship. These have been shared to us by Prof. Michael Charleston "Xiao" Chua.”

September 21, 1972 is the date written on Proclamation 1081. Enrile is “ambushed” the next day. Marcos announces Martial Law on September 23.

From the George Washington University National Security Archive: The United States government notes that Marcos’ martial law declaration, “probably stems from a combination of uncertainty of being able to remain in power beyond 1973 under normal legal arrangements together with the belief that basic reforms could not be accomplished without martial law. While the communist insurgency if left unchecked, might have been able to overthrow the Philippine government in another five years, it clearly does not have that capability at the present time.”

Within 24 hours after the declaration of Martial Law, the military arrests approximately 8,000 individuals and shuts down over 90 publications, 7 television stations, and almost 300 radio stations all over the country.

With Presidential Decree No. 36, Marcos takes control of national mass media. Stating that “the mass media have been used in the conspiracy against the government,” he creates the Mass Media Council and places it under the supervision of the Secretary of Public Information and the Secretary of National Defense.

In one of the very first Letters of Instruction released after the declaration of Martial Law, Marcos ordered the sequestration of ABS-CBN. The LOI states that ABS-CBN facilities are used to “malign and discredit the duly constituted authorities” and are the owners of the network are therefore engaged in the “conspiratorial activities and illegal ends of the Communist Party of the Philippines.”

Within 24 hours after the declaration of Martial Law, Marcos takes control of the public’s information channels, shutting down over 90 publications, 7 television stations, and almost 300 radio stations all over the country. In one fell swoop, Marcos kills press freedom.

Marcos shut down newspaper, radio, and television companies, allowing media operations only under his cronies. Roberto Benedicto, for example, controlled Kanlaon and Daily Express. Like other Marcos conspirators, he was rewarded for his service, with ambassadorship to Japan and control of the Philippine Sugar Commission.

From The Conjugal Dictatorship (Primitivo Mijares • 1976): President Marcos caused the expansion of Benedicto’s small Kanlaon Broadcasting System into a major radio-television complex. He also had Benedicto launch a daily newspaper, the “Philippines’ Daily Express”, at a circulation price under-selling existing newspapers more than 50 percent. The Benedicto tri-media aggressively mouthed the administration; all its companies paid part of the salaries of employees as “additional allowance” coming from the President’s contingent fund.

Marcos prohibits "rallies, demonstrations, picketing or strikes... which would cause hysteria or panic among the populace or would incense the people against their legitimate Goverment, or would generate sympatchy for the radical and lawless elements, or would aggravate the already critical political and social turmoil now prevailing throughout the land".

Marcos prohibits all rallies and demonstrations, including strikes and pickets. La Tondeña workers are the first to challenge this prohibition, in what is considered as the spark that lit a series of protests that would eventually lead to the EDSA Revolt. (Images courtesy of Mayday Multimedia)

Sister Emelina Villegas speaks with Mayday Multimedia on the history and relevance of the La Tondeña workers’ strike.

VERA Files, in a two-part series called The documents on Bongbong Marcos’ university education, writes about Bongbong’s role in his father’s government and his accomplishment claims.

Ferdinand named his wife Imelda as governor of Metropolitan Manila and Minister of Human Settlements. Courts have ruled that during this time, she received bribes and extracted financial shares from the cost of government projects. She founded organizations supposedly for charity, but were used to make foreign bank deposits. In court rulings, Imelda is found to have stolen at least $324 million while in ‘public service.’

To fund "government projects," the Marcos dictatorship borrowed heavily from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. When Marcos first sat as president in 1965, the nation's external debt was at $600 million, growing to $28.2 billion when Marcos was ousted by the people in 1986.

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was never operational, with safety concerns raised because of its location (the volcano Mount Natib is a mere 8 kilometers away and 3 geological faults are within 40 kilometers). It cost the Filipino people $2.1 billion.

The Martial Law Museum on the Marcos dictatorship’s infrastructure projects, including the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (never used at a cost of $2 billion) and the Manila Film Center, where reportedly 169 workers were entombed alive after a construction collapse due to hazardous labor conditions.

In 1977, three days after student activist Archimedes Trajano questions Imee Marcos about her being the head of Kabataang Barangay, he is found “dead with signs of beating and apparent torture and his body and face severely mangled.” In 1922 US civil court rules in favor of the Trajano estate vs Imee Marcos.

Part of the document reads, “"Although Marcos-Manotoc's default concedes that she controlled the military intelligence personnel who tortured and murdered Trajano, and in turn that she was acting under color of the martial law declared by then-President Marcos, we have concluded that her actions were not those of the Republic of the Philippines for purposes of sovereign immunity..."