Through the harsh worries of everyday life, Jesus Castro had to face many obstacles of life while living in the Philippines. Standing healthy at 70 years old, talks about every day life of the country he faced with struggle. Through each day with rough edges along the way, he is now in the United States knowing that he resolved problems and was successful in life. Jesus made sure I understood every word he mentioned and comprehend what he went through while living in the Philippines under the control of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos for 21 years. He gave me opinions and facts about the country and himself as well. Castro said "He was a good for the people, but he was also greedy for the money."
When Marcos ran for president in 1965, I voted against him. When he ran again for reelection in 1969, the election then rigged with anomies. I voted against him during the 1969 election. After the 1969 election he declared Martial Law in 1972. From that time on up to 1986 when he was expelled no elections were held.
I think that Marcos was a good president and a bad president as well. He was good because he was able to instill discipline among the people. So he was able to consolidate unity among the people. Since there was too much chaos during the time, Marcos exercises extreme power to unify the people. He was a bad president because he abuses is powers to become a dictator in a democratic country.
Marcos was able to consolidate the people into believing that he will be able to solve the country's problems by exercising the extra presidential powers to control the reigns of government through intimidation and separation of certain liberties which have gone beyond control after his declaration of martial law. Nobody can contradict any decision of Marcos, he make his own decisions for what's good for everybody.
Marcos had the power to do anything he wanted. Marcos was of course involved in the punishment of crimes and those who were against Marcos were either jailed or secretly killed. Sometimes they would publish it in the newspapers, and sometimes not even at all. Also people didn't how many were killed or how many were jailed.
When Marcos selected the first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, it changed a lot of the country to worst rather than better. They began to abuse their powers, especially after declaring Martial Law. They began to rob the treasury and life began to get harsh, especially among the poor. The rich who were mostly his conies became richer and the poor became poorer. Most of the government was conies of Marcos, and the rest were relatives of the First Lady. There was equal power divided in the Marcos family, but Marcos mostly controlled the shift of government.
Marcos controlled the military and the army, without the army how can enforce Martial Law? Marcos and his crony generals control the whole armed forces. Marcos can declare war without permission from anyone, because congress and the senate were abolished. In a democratic country all the congress and the senate can declare war with out the president.
During Martial Law, the army reigns supreme. He enforces strict military rule in the populace so people were scared of disobedience against military law, other wise punishment of such offenses were harsh and severe.
Everything was controlled by the government. You could no decent; you can not make a decent against the government. There were about 15 radio stations, 7 newspapers, and 8 television stations. All of them were controlled by the government but not owned.
There were a lot of freedoms but freedom of speech was limited. When Marcos declared Martial Law, he abolished the arid of Habeas coppers the action to decent against the government. The freedom of press in the Philippines was also curtailed. The media was under the control of the government. So it can not exercise freedom because the government controls mostly everything.
Women and men were created equal. There was equality between men and women; women were allowed to vote. Everybody was allowed to vote as long as you were twenty-one years old. However, women were not permitted to join the army during the time Marcos was president, only males who were at the age of eighteen were allowed to join the army.
Never dealing with economic issues, but worked during the time of Marcos in a bank. Economy seems normal and it was not going on its way downhill. When they began to rob the country's treasury, the economy got worst and kept going down hill. The pay for everyone was fair.
In 1986, there was a national election held between the widow of slain apparition leader and Marcos. So, Marcos was declared the official winner amidst frond and vote rigging. Until, Marcos protests exploded in Manila, which some powerful segments including the army to Marcos defected to the apparition. Marcos lost virtually all support. He was forced to flee in exile to the Untied States.
Overall, when Marcos was president it was a bad experience for me to being in the Philippines because times were very hard then. The economy was going down hill, and people were afraid of the army, there was rampant corruption, and there was so much killing and persecution in the people porcine to be enemies of the state.
Interviewed by Harris Ono