21/09/2026
Fifty-four years ago today, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. imposed Martial Law. Its defenders still romanticize the period as the Philippines’ “golden age.” The economic record says otherwise.
Whatever gains appeared during the early Marcos years proved fragile and debt-driven. By the dictatorship’s end, real income per Filipino had fallen below its mid-1970s level, while poverty afflicted roughly 44 percent of Filipino families. The country emerged burdened by debt, cronyism, weakened institutions, and grave human-rights violations.
The graph is clear: the sustained rise in Filipino living standards came largely after the dictatorship—not during it. Martial Law was no golden age. It was a national tragedy repackaged as nostalgia.
