(thread) The real question we have to ask in remembering #ML50 is less how did Marcos manage to get away with it, but rather, how did so many who knew what was coming, fail to stop it? The timeline reveals to us it was like a trainwreck in slow motion. philippinediaryproject.com/2021/08/27/a-t…

I have my own theories from reading up and listening to those who were active then. My theory is it took 1962-76 he actually did it in a lot of stages. What Makoy had going for him: every institution that could resist had cells of Marcos minded people. In media, Doroy Valencia...

in the courts, Fred Ruiz Castro, the Ilocano generals and all the colonels pissed off with the Commission on Appointments; legions of parents freaked out by hippies, priests and bishops freaked out by Reds, ditto businessmen big and small. Against him the usual intelligentsia...

but with the intelligentsia with no political sense but so much righteousness it pissed off the middle class, but also a sub-group of thementranced by the idea of recreating society in a grand social experiment at Marcos' instigation;

again, media that was sounding the alarm but pissing off people like businessmen, and most everyone who thought they had more time because FM wouldn't move until closer to November 1973, as his term was ending. Most of all Marcos had sized up everyone's price: and most everyone

proved to have a price. Sen. Pres. Puyat and Speaker Villareal and most everyone in Congress were ok with replacing Congress with a unicameral national assembly; Concon delegates looked forward to sitting in the national assembly provided they approved the Marcos-written charter.

I strongly suspect even ex-Pres. then VP Macapagal and Lopez looked forward to the chance of being ceremonial prexy with FM as PM. They all thought after a temporary crackdown by 1973 they would all be back. This was FM's deal to all of them and they happily took it.

Then FM double crossed them repeatedly: he postponed convening the interim National Assembly to 1974. Then he postponed convening it to 1975. By the time he abolished the Interim National Assembly in 1976 no one could fight him anymore.