THE DOWNFALL OF A DICTATOR : Marcos’ Lust for Power a Key Element in His Demise

As with the American statesmen he so admired, a huge likeness of Ferdinand E. Marcos has been grafted onto the side of a picturesque mountaintop. Unlike the solid granite faces at Mt. Rushmore, however, there is a door in the right ear of the former Philippine president’s likeness on a mountain in the northern Philippines, and his head is hollow.

“Mt. Cash-No-More,” as it was dubbed by critics in the impoverished island nation when they discovered it under construction two years ago, stands as a symbol of a man whose regime paid lip service to American-inspired ideals but eventually was toppled by its own excesses.

Marcos, said William H. Sullivan, a former American ambassador to the Philippines, was driven by an “excessive lust for power coupled with the conviction that he . . . was an indispensable man.”

The chaotic demise of the Philippine president ended the career of one of Washington’s staunchest but most vexing Asian allies. During his 20 years of power, Marcos hewed to a pro-American line, guaranteeing the United States continued access to two strategic military bases on the northern island of Luzon.

And for years, concern for maintaining those facilities led Washington policy-makers to look the other way as the cunning but ruthless Marcos converted a sputtering democracy modeled on the American system into an increasingly unpopular dictatorship.

Marcos was the most imposing figure in Philippine history, imbued with a keen sense of the strains in Philippine society and how to play them off, one against another. Yet his social and political tinkering turned what had been the wealthiest and most stable nation in Southeast Asia into one of most impoverished.

Suspicion Persisted

There was an ironic symmetry to Marcos’ life. As a young law student in the prewar days of American colonial rule, Marcos represented himself and talked his way out of a murder charge in a celebrated case that launched his public career. As an aging and ailing national ruler, however, he was unable to dispel suspicion that his government was behind the assassination of Benigno S. Aquino Jr., Marcos’ chief political rival.

That 1983 assassination revitalized a moribund opposition movement, heralded the decline of Marcos’ one-man rule and--in another ironic twist--eventually thrust Aquino’s widow, Corazon, into the seat of power Marcos tried so hard to deny her husband.

Marcos was long celebrated as his country’s greatest World War II hero (though critics in recent months questioned the authenticity of many of his claimed exploits), its flashiest lawyer, its longest serving leader and, for many years, arguably its most admired individual.

But by the beginning of this climactic week, that reservoir of good will had long since vanished, frittered away amid widespread charges of corruption, waste, military abuses, nepotism and economic decay.

The growth in anti-Marcos sentiment that mushroomed after the Aquino assassination also ushered in a wave of nationalism which focused on ridding the nation of excessive American influence and cast clouds over the future of the U.S.-run Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base.

In a nation that had never produced more than a one-term president since it was granted independence from the United States in 1946, Marcos served as a leader for two decades, explaining in a 1984 interview that he believed the presidency was “God-given.”

His supporters said that widespread popularity was the secret to his longevity in office. But opponents claimed that he not only rigged his reelections but--when the constitution required an end to his rule after eight years--declared martial law in 1972, rewrote the national charter and imprisoned thousands of political foes.

The Nixon Administration appeared to support Marcos’ declaration of martial law, hoping it would end a period of surging criminal violence and usher in a period of political and economic stability.

Yet while Marcos once said he wanted most to be remembered as a “political, social and economic reformer who saved the country from anarchy,” whatever successes he could claim always seemed to be overshadowed by excesses and his final years in office were increasingly chaotic.

His ironclad rule, his penchant for squandering scarce government resources on friends and family, his increasing reliance on military strength to prop up his rule and his reluctance until late in his career to establish a clear-cut succession mechanism left a legacy of fiscal and political confusion. That, in turn, helped generate more support for a growing Communist insurgency movement, the New People’s Army.

Marcos’ most serious failings may have been in his handling of the economy. When he assumed the presidency, the Philippines was considered the richest nation in Southeast Asia. Today, it is one of the poorest non-Communist countries in the booming Far East, with a neglected agricultural base, little industry and the region’s worst debt problems. For two straight years, it has experienced negative growth, its gross national product slipping by 10%.

The controversial end to Marcos’ presidency stood in stark contrast to the initial phase, which began in 1965 when he defeated then-incumbent President Diosdado Macapagal in national elections.

Back then, Marcos was viewed as something of a reformer: He eliminated thousands of government jobs and cracked down on corrupt officials who had been collaborating with criminals and smugglers. He is widely credited with initiating sorely needed improvements in highways, sewers and other long-neglected infrastructure projects and starting land reform.

Stranglehold Broken

As he consolidated his power, Marcos also broke the economic and political stranglehold which a handful of established families had managed to maintain over industry and government. But, instead of significantly broadening the base of wealth and political participation in the country, he simply replaced the old oligarchs with new ones loyal to him.

Marcos was considered one of the nation’s most eligible and sought-after bachelors until he met former beauty queen Imelda Romualdez in 1954. They were married after a whirlwind romance of 11 days and, for a wedding present, Marcos gave his young bride an 11-carat diamond ring--one carat for each day of their courtship. The couple had three children of their own and adopted another.

At first, their chemistry captured the imagination of their countrymen who thrilled in the glamorous life style of the Marcoses, whom they viewed as the Kennedys of the Philippines.

Eventually, however, Imelda Marcos became the leading symbol of waste and extravagance. She jet-setted around the world on shopping sprees, squandered public money on controversial building projects, turned the established broadcast and print media into personal publicity organs and installed friends and family in a wide range of influential public and private positions.

Presiding over what critics snidely referred to as a “conjugal dictatorship,” the Marcoses did not just dominate the Philippine political and social scene. They smothered it.

Washington found Marcos’ support valuable but expensive. He sent troops to Vietnam in symbolic support for former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war effort and hosted a conference of South Vietnamese allies that the U.S. hoped would demonstrate a solid front.

In exchange, the Philippine leader sought--and received--more and more economic and military aid for his own country, much of which lined the pockets of friends and cronies.

Given a ‘Shopping List’

William Bundy, the assistant secretary for East Asian Affairs in Johnson’s State Department, recalled that Marcos once personally presented Johnson with a “shopping list” of aid requests when the two met at a state funeral in Australia. “If you ever bring that (man) within 50 miles of me again, I’ll have your head,” Bundy said Johnson warned him after the encounter.

Tragically for Marcos, those close to him created his most crucial problems. Marcos promoted his cousin and boyhood pal, Fabian C. Ver, to the post of armed forces chief of staff over more-qualified officers--one of them West Point-trained Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, whose eventual defection to opposition ranks sparked the tense showdown that brought about Marcos’ downfall.

Ver’s control of the scandal-ridden military propped up Marcos’ rule, but the general was implicated in the Aquino killing by a majority of the panel that investigated it. A tribunal packed with Marcos loyalists formally absolved Ver and other top military leaders last November, after a long trial. But the acquittal touched off another spasm of anti-government protest that Marcos sought to quell by calling the fateful Feb. 7 presidential election to reaffirm the legitimacy of his grip on power.

Marcos was reelected in 1969, the first president in the country’s history to win a second term. But his second four years were rockier. Opponents charged that he drained government coffers to finance his reelection, the peso was devalued for the first time, a crime wave shook the country, a Communist insurgency was bubbling and student activists became increasingly combative.

In what proved the pivotal event of his political career, Marcos declared martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, claiming he needed Draconian powers to combat the insurgents and growing chaos in the streets. But thousands of political opponents were thrown in jail, chief among them Benigno Aquino, who had been the odds-on-favorite to succeed Marcos as president.

Could Stay Indefinitely

And the constitution was changed to allow Marcos to continue in office indefinitely, with extraordinary powers. He called his new form of government “constitutional authoritarianism.”

For a time, martial law was welcomed by many Filipinos who liked the order it brought to the often chaotic country, but it also ushered in a new climate of fear and paranoia among a people known for their fun-loving and casual manner.

Marcos’ authoritarianism also served to radicalize many Roman Catholic priests and nuns who joined in anti-government activities. Manila’s outspoken archbishop, Cardinal Jaime Sin, became a persistent critic of Marcos and had frequent run-ins with the president.

Marcos finally lifted martial law in January, 1981, just ahead of a visit to the country by Pope John Paul II, but many Filipinos saw little difference, since the president retained his extraordinary powers.

Though his relations with President Jimmy Carter were chilly because of alleged Philippine human rights violations, the Reagan Administration embraced Marcos warmly. Vice President George Bush came to Manila in 1981 and praised Marcos’ “adherence to democratic principles and democratic processes.” The next year Marcos was welcomed by President Reagan during a state visit to the United States.

Marcos’ bubble burst with the Aquino assassination.

Had Macho Image

Feisty and pugnacious by nature, Marcos’ attempts to halt the erosion of his authority were hampered by illness. A man of few physical excesses, the 5-foot, 6-inch Marcos neither drank nor smoked and reveled in his macho image as a fitness buff.

But in the last few years he suffered serious kidney problems aggravated by a degenerative disease that attacked his body’s immune system. Aides fabricated elaborate cover stories to mask his illnesses and government publicists often distributed old pictures and videotapes of Marcos at work to counter rumors that he was bedridden.

So completely had the once-granite ruler faded that when the end came Tuesday, he was carried ignominiously to a waiting U.S. transport plane on a stretcher.