Just how bad was corruption during the Marcos years?

We’re 3 years shy of the 50th anniversary of Marcos’ Martial Law declaration. Yet so many myths about the Marcoses still abound.

One is that Marcos supposedly holds the Guinness World Record for “World’s Most Brilliant President in History.”

Although that one’s false, Marcos does have a legitimate Guinness World Record to his name: “Greatest Robbery of a Government” to the tune of $5 billion to $10 billion. This record has yet to be beaten.

You might wonder: why such a wide estimate of the Marcos plunder?

Part of the reason is that, to this day, it’s hard to pin down the true extent of corruption during the Martial Law years. Corruption then was so rampant not just in the public sector but also – more insidiously – in the private sector.

In this article let’s look back at the horrific scale of corruption during the Marcos years.

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