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TimB,

I was in the Philippines under Marcus   in the late 60’s and again in  late 70’s. Marcus was booted out in the mid 80’s, as I recall, still being praised and protected by Reagan.

His reign of terror, in contradiction to Wikipedia, actually began in the late 60’s. Dictatorship in the Philippines was in stages. (1) brutality (2) economic chaos (because foreign aid was diverted to his personal account) and soaring national debt (3) confiscation of guns (4) election fraud.

Takeover was done slowly to fool the electorate, and not necessarily in the order I prescribed. There were other intermediate stages I am certain, but I can tell you only what I saw and what I learned from locals who were brutalized.  Also several of my friends married Philippine women, and they kept me informed to the last minute of the details, even when I returned to the states several times.

I lived downtown Angels City with the natives, so I was privileged to see more than most military personnel. I cannot remember every detail, but I can remember Marcus’s minions going house to house confiscating guns. When some refused to turn them over, a law was passed to make anyone caught with a gun a criminal. So those who defended their families during a crime, got just as harsh a sentence as the criminal who broke in their house. Both were declared criminals.

So much for the right wing conservatives who say “ they will get my guns when they pry it from my cold dead fingers”. I laugh at these people. Once you lose your gun rights, you concede or become a criminal yourself. Everyone will turn over their guns when their government says so or, they will go to jail.

I can remember Philippine Police, or maybe it was soldiers, standing guard in the voting booths. Of course, they were there to insure there was no election fraud. My house maid (Philippino) told me if you voted wrong, his minions paid you a visit within days, and people just disappeared, never to be seen again.

Getting control of the elections is mandatory for dictators. Often times, according to native testimony to me, people were arrested, put in jail without habeous corpus, again never to be seen. It was always amazing that Marcus would win by 90% or more votes. One would think the people really loved him.

The demonstrations actually started in the late 60s only to escalate into mass (tens and hundreds of thousands) in the streets, in the mid 80’s, not only Manila, but in numerous cities. Many had hoes, rakes, and shovels as they marched, because they had no weapons.

In frustration, in the end, unable to maintain control, Marcus declared martial law (of course ratified by a large percentage of citizens), and, of course, the citizens voted for martial law to restrain themselves.

In the very very end, in his frustration, it became the death penalty to own a single round of ammo. Marcus was elected legally to begin with, and slowly usurped power. Legislators  who disagreed with Marcus were shot down like dogs. I can remember that during one election, in Balibago, there were 104 candidates running for local office, 52 were killed.  Of course, it was a coincident that they were anti Marcus.

The people had no recourse but to retaliate, because Marcus refused to give them a means to communicate thru representation. The country was raped monetarily, corruption was rampant, fear and despair were everywhere, and almost to the very end, the US backed Marcus. The brutality was indescribable.