The Marcos Dynasty Quotes

“Patronage, not democracy, was the most important force in the islands.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“From December 1944 till mid-April 1945, when Ferdinand requested transfer for personal reasons to Volckmann’s headquarters at Luna, La Union, Manriquez insisted that Marcos was only a clerk and was never involved on patrol or in combat operations, which was confirmed by Captain Vicente Rivera of the 14th. Yet many years after the war, when Ferdinand was a politician angling for the presidency, he was awarded a number of medals for awesome and virtually single-handed combat exploits in the closing months of the war. During state visits to America as president of the Philippines, he was commended for these phony exploits by three presidents of the United States and was given a specially mounted display of his undeserved U.S. medals by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“I got down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for guidance. And one night late it came to me: we could not give [the Philippines] back to Spain — that would be cowardly and dishonorable; we could not turn them over to France or Germany … that would be bad business; we could not leave them to themselves — they were unfit for self-government. There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all … then I went to bed and slept soundly.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“The most shop-worn joke in Manila was that the Philippines had spent “three hundred years in a convent, fifty years in a brothel.” The oligarchy kept the keys.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“The war had lasted three years; only 883 Americans died in battle, 3,349 more of disease. Of the 1 million dead Filipinos (out of a population of 6 million), 16,000 were guerrillas, 984,000 civilians.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“Onshore, Aguinaldo’s rebel forces gained control of all the countryside except Manila, and he declared independence on June 12, 1898. Filipinos became the first Asians to throw off European colonialism. It was instantly replaced by American colonialism.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“The leading clans (mostly natives of Fukien Province on the mainland opposite Taiwan) were traditional and conservative, and maintained close ties over the decades to the Chiang regime in Nanking and later in Taipei.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“After ten months of “all-out war” on smuggling, not one boss or financier of a smuggling syndicate had been prosecuted or imprisoned.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“If you have imaginary enemies, it is possible to have imaginary victories.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“If government becomes a lawbreaker it breeds contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“Self-interest in Filipino politics was openly celebrated.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“militant Fascism was a natural ally of extortion.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“Marcos Axiom — everything said is the opposite of the facts”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“To be convicted of a crime in the Philippines is almost to be convicted of lacking influence.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty

“With America’s blessing, Manila under the Marcoses became a center for money-laundering, arms trafficking, narcotics, amphetamines, gambling, white slavery, and the world center for child prostitution.”
― Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty