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St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 26, 1986
After more than 20 years as president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos fled his country following a popular rebellion. This article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch discusses the rebellion and speculates about whether Marcos and his family will be granted political asylum in the United States. Marcos eventually settled in Hawaii, where he died in 1989. The new president, Corazon Aquino, was the widow of long-time Marcos opponent Benigno Aquino, who was assassinated in 1983.
Manila, Philippines—Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines today after 20 years in power.
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Corazon Aquino, the new president, told the country, “The long agony is over, we are finally free.”
Marcos' government crumbled only hours after the inauguration of Aquino as president of a provisional government.
Aquino told the nation after Marcos resigned, “We have achieved our freedom with courage and determination, and most important, in peace. A new life starts for our country tomorrow. A life filled with hope and, I believe, a life that will be blessed with peace and progress.”
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Marcos, 68, flew with his family and close aides in two helicopters to a U.S. Air Force base 50 miles north of Manila nine hours after he took an oath of office himself for a new six-year term as president. U.S. officials said Marcos landed at Clark Air Base, where he spent the night.
From there a U.S. C-9 transport jet carried Marcos and his wife, Imelda, to the American-run island of Guam in the Pacific. A C-141 Starlifter carried the rest of the Marcos party, totaling about 60 people, U.S. officials said.
A State Department official said Marcos would stay in Guam “for some time.” But Guam's acting governor, Edward D. Reyes, said Marcos would leave Guam for Hawaii today.
Marcos has been offered asylum in the United States, but his ultimate destination is unknown.
Accompanying the deposed president were his children, grandchildren and mother, along with Gen. Fablan C. Ver, his former chief of staff, authorities said.
Marcos, who suffers from a disease that has affected his kidneys, was carried aboard the U.S. Air Force medical evacuation plane on a stretcher. But he walked off the plane in Guam, Reyes said.
The United States promptly recognized the government of Aquino, who had been swept into power by a military mutiny that began Saturday and drew an outpouring of public support.
In a statement, Secretary of State George P. Shultz hailed her and the Filipino people for a commitment to non-violence in working for a transition to a new government after a presidential election Feb. 7 marred by widespread fraud and violence.
Marcos was declared the victor in vote-counting by a Parliament that he controlled, but the public perception was that Aquino and her running mate, Salvador Laurel, had won.
Stephen Bosworth, U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, told ABC News: “The four days have ... been simply an extension of the counting process, and they now feel they have got the count right.”
For two hours after Marcos left his Malacanang presidential palace in Manila at 9:05 p.m. Tuesday (7:05 a.m. St. Louis time), die-hard Marcos supporters who had attended his inauguration and remained behind battled crowds of opposition supporters with rocks, bottles and homemade grenades in the streets outside the compound.
The outbreaks of violence that accompanied Tuesday's tumultuous events left 13 persons dead, Manila newspapers reported. Those killed included four soldiers loyal to Marcos; they were killed in an assault on a television station by rebel troops. A youth also was reported killed in cross-fire in that battle.
Eight other persons were reported killed in the business district of Makati in a gunfight between rival police factions.
Since the military rebellion began Saturday, 15 persons have been reported killed and 20 wounded.
Late Tuesday night, after all resistance had ceased, thousands of people from all walks of life flocked to the abandoned palace and toured the grounds, jubilantly waving Aquino campaign flags and gawking at the light tanks and armored vehicles stationed inside the compound.
Some of the crowd broke into an administrative office building just inside the main palace gate and threw papers out the windows. Others vandalized the ground floor of the palace building housing Marcos' office and living quarters and looted equipment and furnishings.
At one gatehouse inside the compound, a dozen youths fought over bandoleers of machine-gun bullets stashed in cabinets. In front of a main entrance where Marcos supporters had gathered earlier in the day to hear Imelda Marcos speak from a balcony, a crowd smashed a portrait of her against a wall as hundreds of onlookers cheered.
On the whole, however, the crowds were peaceful and refrained from doing serious damage to the compound in response to an appeal from the Aquino camp. At one point, several thousand people sang a patriotic song, “Bayan Ko,” and held up paper Philippine flags as Aquino supporters waved a campaign banner from a palace balcony.
Aquino took her own oath of office Tuesday in a ceremony in which she was proclaimed president by opposition members of Parliament and Filipino dignitaries. The proceedings, in a social and sports club in a Manila suburb, took place amid tension between military rebels supporting Aquino and troops backing Marcos.
In the hours afterward, it became clear that Marcos had lost the support of most of his remaining military commanders and that his government had been crippled by defections of senior officials. The developments left Marcos politically and militarily isolated.
In his inaugural address before an audience of Cabinet ministers and aides and about 500 supporters in the palace ceremonial hall, Marcos vowed to “prevent the destruction of our democratic society.” To the end, he spoke of filing charges against the mutineers and Aquino supporters for “usurpation of public authority” by rebelling against him.
The rebellion began when young military officers loyal to Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile learned of a plan to arrest him and opposition leaders and crack down on a military reformist movement. Enrile gathered supporters at his ministry building in Manila's Camp Aguinaldo, where he was joined by acting armed forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos.
Together, Enrile and Ramos announced Saturday that they were withdrawing support from Marcos and were endorsing Aquino, whom they called the legitimately elected president of the Philippines.
Reformist officers and men barricaded themselves inside the camp and a neighboring base, Camp Crame, and braced for an attack by forces loyal to Marcos. During the next four days, however, a steady trickle of defections to the rebels became a torrent, and the expected all-out assault never came.
Tuesday, according to a knowledgeable foreign military attache, support for Marcos unraveled rapidly when an elite Scout Ranger regiment went over to the rebel side. At the same time, three battalions of marines commanded by Brig. Gen. Artemio Tadiar and the army's metropolitan brigade under Brig. Gen. Roland Pattuglan were effectively “neutralized” by their refusal to support either side.
That left Marcos with only his chief of staff, Ver, to rely on along with the 1,500-member Presidential Security Command headed by Ver's son, Col. Irwin Ver. But as the day wore on and word of the defections spread, even that praetorian guard collapsed and left the palace area shortly before Marcos' departure.
Marcos was unable to bring in reinforcements from the provinces because of the defection of the air force during the previous days. By Tuesday he had completely lost control of the skies over Manila, and the capital's international airport was firmly in the hands of rebel forces.
The airport was invaded and captured when a planeload of Philippine constabulary rangers landed Tuesday and quickly overran the tarmac and terminal building. There were no reported injuries as the heavily armed rangers seized the airport complex without firing a shot.
In her inauguration, Aquino rewarded Enrile, who had been Marcos' defense minister for nearly two decades before the mutiny, by naming him to the same post in her new Cabinet. She also appointed Ramos armed forces chief of staff and promoted him to full general.
Upon the announcement of his promotion Ramos stood up and smartly saluted Aquino, who returned the salute awkwardly.
Aquino also named Laurel, her vice president, as concurrent prime minister. But she left various ministerial posts unfilled, announcing the formation instead of “special task forces” to take charge of such matters as foreign affairs, finance, justice and labor.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 26, 1986.
Appears in
Aquino, Benigno Simeon, Jr.; Marcos, Ferdinand Edralin
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