Negative Views
His administration, as a whole, was marked by the success of his programs and considered to have brought the Philippines a dynamic and vital development of its physical economy. But, just as he had done a lot of good things during the administration, he had also done many mistakes. These mistakes were not only done by him but of the whole administrative staff.
The second term of office was marked by a cry of increasing civil disorder. Marcos was not able to diminish the excessive corruption that his administration was committing. He also failed to equal the growing population with a growing economy. The Communist Party of the Philippines started to form the New People’s Army and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) fought for the independence of Mindanao as a state. Rebellions were done by the people who made Marcos think that these were already threats to the public safety and peace and order. The rebellions show that there have also been problems with the people in cooperating with the government. Due to not having disclosure of information of some civilians going “missing”, people started to fight against the government.
Due to threats of the Communists and the rising level of unruliness, Marcos declared Martial Law. This declaration at first, received good reputations and comments from the people. The intent of the declaration was good. It was to avoid destruction of the government by oppositional rebels, to lower down the crime rates by proclaiming a curfew to all the people, and wave goodbye to the activists which actually caused turmoil in the country. But all of these good intents were vanished when the military started to make excesses in the way they give punishments to people. The military became too much engaged in the punishments that they already committed human rights violations against the people they punished. These violations were not taken into action because of the strict implementation of the Martial Law. The Martial Law prevailed even after his next term, for his presidency was extended because of the plebiscite that gave him the right to remain in office beyond the end of his term on December 1973. By the end of 1973, there were already thousands who were killed, many villages were burnt down and government corruption had increased with a great mark.
The high price of oil gave way to the great decline of the economy. Aside from this, the Philippine exports such as sugar and coconut oil experienced a decline of price in the world market. The government was forced to borrow money from the International Monetary Fund. All the things that transpired in the country hindered its development. A big part of the annual budget was allocated to paying of the international loans. The trouble in the Philippine government also lowered down the level of tourism in the country. The assassination of Aquino in a national airport shocked the foreigners and scared them to death that they refused to go to the country for a visit. Foreign investors also refused to lend the government money for its recovery. The recovery programs that Marcos implemented all failed. There was no way for the Philippine economy but to go down.
Many people thought that the reason why Marcos declared Martial Law was for his personal gain, to remain in power for a long time. Partly, this might be true. But, we could also give him the benefit of a doubt that maybe, he also wanted to develop and create a better republic through his administration. The only mistake that he committed in this part was that he was not able to control the people under his authority -- the government officials and staffs who demonstrated thorough and vigorous corruption from the government funds and the military men who were not able to control themselves and committed human rights violation against the Filipino people who chose to oppose and fight the government. Another reason behind the fall of the administration was the limited rights of the media which gave way to the outburst of insults and criticisms of the media to the Marcos administration. Because of the rebellious acts of different journalists who were later tortured and even executed, the people grew angry at how these events occurred without knowing the real reason behind this.Basically, we can say that it was not all because of Marcos that made him look bad. A big part of the negative sides of the Marcos administration actually came from the people behind him. In all fairness, if we look back at history, we could see that there were also positive effects of the Martial Law.
Ferdinand Marcos’ administration was a combination of positive and negative sides, just like any other administration. It was just that Filipinos focused more on the negative sides that there was no mention of the good things that he had done for the country. Filipinos all over the country all think about bad things when asked about how Marcos was as a president. We know that we cannot blame the Filipinos for this. But, we also have to be grateful to Marcos for doing many firsts for our country and for starting the way to a good education for the Filipinos. Marcos’ belief in the significance of education, anyway, had given way for him establishing more schools in the country. Even if Marcos, his family or his administration id negative things in the Philippine government, there are still things that are worth being grateful to him. One of these things is that he made the Philippine history a colorful and dynamic one.
