Editing Ferdinand Marcos (section)

==Third term (1981–1986)==
{{Main|1981 Philippine presidential election and referendum}}
[[File:Ferdinand Marcos and George Shultz DA-SC-84-05877.JPEG|thumb|Ferdinand Marcos with US Secretary of State [[George Shultz]], 1982]]

On June 16, 1981, six months after lifting martial law, the [[1981 Philippine presidential election and referendum|first presidential election in twelve years]] was held. President Marcos ran while the major opposition parties, the [[United Nationalists Democratic Organizations]] (UNIDO), a coalition of opposition parties and LABAN, boycotted the election. Marcos won a massive victory.<ref name="Steinberg">{{cite book|title=The Philippines: a singular and a plural place |first=David Joel |last=Steinberg|publisher=Westview Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8133-3755-5 |page=135}}</ref>

Marcos' third inauguration took place on Tuesday, June 30, 1981, at the [[Quirino Grandstand]] in Manila.<ref>{{Cite speech |date=June 30, 1981 |title=Third Inaugural Address of President Marcos, June 30, 1981 |url=https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1981/06/30/third-inaugural-address-of-president-marcos-june-30-1981/ |access-date=June 2, 2023 |publisher=Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines}}</ref> Then [[Vice President of the United States|U.S. Vice President]] [[George H. W. Bush]], [[Prime Minister of Singapore|Singaporean Prime Minister]] [[Lee Kuan Yew]], future [[President of the People's Republic of China|President of China]] [[Yang Shangkun]] and [[Prime Minister of Thailand|Thai Prime Minister]] [[Prem Tinsulanonda]] attended. At the inauguration, Bush had infamous praise for Marcos: "We love your adherence to democratic principles and to the democratic process."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080304202331/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,960545-4,00.html Time (magazine)] A Test for Democracy</ref>

===Armed conflict with the CPP–NPA===
Under martial law the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's army was a period of significant growth.<ref name="RebellionRepressionPh" />{{rp|page=43}}<ref name="marcosMartialLawNeverAgain" /> This continued into the 1980s. The NPA established itself in urban areas while the NDF formed relationships with legal opposition organizations – all despite Marcos' claims in January 1981 that the conflict had been "substantially contained".<ref name="Celoza1997"/>{{rp|[{{google books|plainurl=y|id=Sp3U1oCNKlgC|page=73}} 73]}}<ref name="GovPH-PP2045"/> The killing of key leaders in Davao city in the opening years of the 1980s led the administration to claim that the CPP "backbone" in the south had broken,"<ref>{{cite news|agency=Philippine News Agency|title=Communist backbone in south broken|publisher=Times Journal |volume= X |issue= 336|date=September 23, 1982}}</ref>  But the remaining leaders soon began to experiment with new tactics including urban insurrection, leading the international press to label Davao City as the "Killing Fields", and as "the Philippines' 'Murder Capital'".<ref name="ChapmanPost">{{Cite news |last=Chapman |first=William |date=May 19, 1985 |title=A Philippine Laboratory Of Revolution |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1985/05/19/a-philippine-laboratory-of-revolution/a91a2664-f069-4886-8247-3c14514d3ebf/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401144754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1985/05/19/a-philippine-laboratory-of-revolution/a91a2664-f069-4886-8247-3c14514d3ebf/ |archive-date=April 1, 2023 |access-date=January 7, 2024 |newspaper=Washington Post |issn=0190-8286}}</ref>  The violence reached its peak in 1985 with 1,282 military and police deaths and 1,362 civilian deaths.<ref name="web.stanford.edu" />

===Recession===
The Marcos administration's spending had relied heavily on debt since Marcos's first term in the 60s. This left the Philippines vulnerable when high inflation caused the US to raise interest rates from 1980 to 1982, which caused US recessions in 1980 and 1981.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Recession of 1981–82 {{!}} Federal Reserve History |url=https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/recession-of-1981-82 |access-date=March 8, 2024 |website=www.federalreservehistory.org}}</ref><ref name="EJGuido&CheDeLosReyes20170921">{{cite news |last1=Guido |first1=Edson Joseph |last2=de los Reyes |first2=Che |year=2017 |title=The best of times? Data debunk Marcos's economic 'golden years' |url=https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/09/21/17/the-best-of-times-data-debunk-marcoss-economic-golden-years |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181103210619/https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/09/21/17/the-best-of-times-data-debunk-marcoss-economic-golden-years |archive-date=November 3, 2018 |access-date=November 29, 2018 |work=ABS-CBN News}}</ref> The Philippine economy went into decline in 1981. Economic and political instability combined to produce the worst recession in Philippine history in 1984 and 1985, with the economy contracting by 7.3% for two successive years<ref name="EJGuido&CheDeLosReyes20170921" /> and poverty incidence at 49%.<ref name="povertyInequalityGrowthPhilippines">{{cite book |last1=Balisacan |first1=Arsenio M.|last2=Pernia|first2=Enresto |title=Poverty, Growth, and Institutions in Developing Asia |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-1-349-51389-5 |pages=219–246 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304752126 |access-date=April 16, 2022}}</ref>

===Aquino assassination===
{{Main|Assassination of Ninoy Aquino}}
[[File:MarcosinWashington1983.jpg|thumb|upright|President Ferdinand Marcos in Washington in 1982]]

On August 21, 1983, opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated on the tarmac at [[Ninoy Aquino International Airport|Manila International Airport]]. He had returned to the Philippines after three years in exile in the United States, where he had a heart bypass operation after Marcos allowed him to leave the Philippines to seek medical care. Prior to his heart surgery, Ninoy, along with his two co-accused, NPA leaders Bernabe Buscayno (Commander Dante) and Lt. Victor Corpuz, were sentenced to death by a military commission on charges of murder, illegal possession of firearms and subversion.<ref name="asianjournalusa.com" />

A few months before his assassination, Ninoy had decided to return to the Philippines after his research fellowship from [[Harvard University]] ended. The opposition blamed Marcos directly for the assassination while others blamed the military and Imelda Marcos. Popular speculation pointed to three suspects; the first was Marcos himself through his military chief Fabian Ver; the second theory pointed to Imelda, who had her own designs now that her ailing husband seemed to be getting weaker, and the third was that Danding Cojuangco planned the assassination to serve his own political ambitions.<ref name="inquirerOrderedHit">{{cite news|url=http://globalnation.inquirer.net/columns/columns/view/20090819-221072/Who-ordered-the-hit-on-Ninoy-Aquino|title=Who ordered the hit on Ninoy Aquino?|last=Rodis|first=Rodel|newspaper=Philippine Daily Inquirer|date=August 19, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090822122022/http://globalnation.inquirer.net/columns/columns/view/20090819-221072/Who-ordered-the-hit-on-Ninoy-Aquino|archive-date=August 22, 2009}}</ref> The 1985 acquittals of Ver as well as other high-ranking military officers charged with the crime were widely seen as a [[Whitewash (censorship)|whitewash]] and a miscarriage of justice.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}

On November 22, 2007, Pablo Martinez, one of the soldiers convicted in the Aquino assassination, alleged that [[Cronies of Ferdinand Marcos|Marcos crony]] Danding Cojuangco had ordered the assassination while Marcos was recuperating from his kidney transplant. Cojuangco was the cousin of Aquino's wife Corazon Cojuangco Aquino. Martinez alleged that only he and Galman knew of the assassination, and that Galman was the actual shooter, which is not corroborated by other evidence.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.newsbreak-knowledge.ph/2007/11/23/transcript-of-abs-cbn-interview-with-pablo-martinez-co-accused-in-the-aquino-murder-case/|title=Transcript of ABS-CBN Interview with Pablo Martinez, co-accused in the Aquino murder case|access-date=April 19, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150628232250/http://archives.newsbreak-knowledge.ph/2007/11/23/transcript-of-abs-cbn-interview-with-pablo-martinez-co-accused-in-the-aquino-murder-case/|archive-date=June 28, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

After the February 1986 People Power revolution swept Aquino's widow to the presidency, the Supreme Court ordered a reinvestigation of the assassination.<ref name=":7">{{Cite web|last=Grande|first=Gigi|date=August 20, 2018|title=A tale of two triggermen|url=https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/08/21/18/a-tale-of-two-triggermen|access-date=May 6, 2021|website=ABS-CBN News|archive-date=May 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506205820/https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/08/21/18/a-tale-of-two-triggermen|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Panganiban|first=Artemio V.|date=August 26, 2018|title=Who masterminded Ninoy's murder?|url=https://opinion.inquirer.net/115635/masterminded-ninoys-murder|access-date=May 6, 2021|website=Inquirer|archive-date=May 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506120041/https://opinion.inquirer.net/115635/masterminded-ninoys-murder|url-status=live}}</ref> The Sandiganbayan convicted 16 military personnel for the murder, ruling that Constable 1st Class Rogelio Moreno, one of the military escorts assigned to Aquino, "fired the fatal shot" that killed Aquino, not Galman.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Gavilan|first=Jodesz|date=August 20, 2016|title=Look Back: The Aquino assassination|url=https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/look-back-ninoy-aquino-assassination|access-date=May 6, 2021|website=Rappler|archive-date=October 30, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030222807/https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/look-back-ninoy-aquino-assassination|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":7" />

===Impeachment attempt===
In August 1985, 56 Assemblymen signed a resolution calling for the [[impeachment]] of President Marcos for alleged diversion of US aid for personal use,<ref name="Blitz2000"/>{{rp|[{{google books|plainurl=y|id=n2rdOhMdCDEC|page=167}} 167–168]}} citing a July 1985 ''[[San Jose Mercury News]]'' exposé of the Marcos's multimillion-dollar US investments and property holdings.

The properties included the Crown Building, Lindenmere Estate, residential apartments, a shopping center, mansions (in London, Rome, and Honolulu), the Helen Knudsen Estate, and three condominiums.

The Assembly included in the complaint the misuse and misapplication of funds "for the construction of the [[Manila Film Center]], where X-rated and pornographic films{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} are exhibited, contrary to public morals and Filipino customs and traditions." The impeachment attempt gained little traction, however, even in the light of this incendiary charge; the committee to which the impeachment resolution was referred did not recommend it, and any momentum for removing Marcos under constitutional processes soon died.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}}

===Physical decline===
{{See also|People Power Revolution}}

During his third term, Marcos's health deteriorated rapidly due to kidney ailments, as a complication of a chronic autoimmune disease ''[[lupus erythematosus]]''. He had a kidney transplant in August 1983, and when his body rejected the first kidney transplant, he underwent a second transplant in November 1984.<ref name="Los Angeles Times">{{cite news|title=Marcos Underwent Kidney Transplants, Doctors Say|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-11-11-mn-3824-story.html|work=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=November 11, 1985|access-date=February 20, 2020|archive-date=January 19, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190119092425/http://articles.latimes.com/1985-11-11/news/mn-3824_1_kidney-transplants|url-status=live}}</ref> A palace physician who alleged that during one of these periods Marcos had undergone a [[kidney transplant]] was shortly afterwards found murdered. Police said he was kidnapped and slain by communist rebels.<ref name="Los Angeles Times" /> Many people questioned whether Marcos had capacity to govern, due to his illness and the burgeoning political unrest.<ref name=wurf/>{{rp|[{{google books|plainurl=y|id=R-oK4ZetPIAC|page=289}} 289]}} With Marcos ailing, Imelda emerged as the government's main public figure.