How the Marcos Years Affected Society

The Marcos rule was economically disastrous for the Philippines. The causes of this were greatly made by the abuses of the Marcoses and their cronies. Their crimes brought our country into deep poverty and trouble at the end. And the evidence of their scandalous acts is found in various published materials.
Some people have estimated that the Marcos’s and their associates took at least 5 billion dollars of ill-gotten wealth. But there are other materials suggesting that Marcos took even greater amounts of money. According to Jovito Salonga (the first chairman of the Philippine Presidential Commission on Good Government) there were three main sources of the Marcos loot.
Firstly, Marcos diverted our economic aid donations from other countries for his own personal purpose. He was the one arranging all our foreign economic assistance, including reparation funds from Japan and economic aid from the United States. Secondly, there were the military funds to help the community (Philcag fu...