Ferdinand Marcos - Early Life

Early Life

Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was born September 11, 1917, in the town of Sarrat, Ilocos Norte to parents Mariano Marcos and Josefa Edralin. He was baptized into the Philippine Independent Church. According to the Marcos family's oral history, the family name was originally Quidit, and their Ilokano roots have some Han Chinese and Japanese ancestry. Marcos said that his forefather was a "15th century Chinese pirate".

In December 1938, Mariano Marcos, his brother Pio, his son Ferdinand, and his brother-in-law Quirino Lizardo were prosecuted for the murder of Julio Nalundasan, one of Marcos' father's political rivals. On September 20, 1935, the day after Nalundasan (for the second time) defeated Mariano Marcos for the National Assembly seat for Ilocos Norte, Nalundasan was shot and killed in his house in Batac. According to two witnesses, the four had conspired to assassinate Nalundasan, with Ferdinand Marcos eventually doing the killing. In late January 1939, they were denied bail and in the fall of 1939 they were convicted. Ferdinand and Lizardo received the death penalty for premeditated murder, while Mariano and Pio were found guilty only of contempt of court. The Marcos family took their appeal to the Supreme Court of the Philippines, which on October 22, 1940, overturned the lower court's decision and acquitted them of all charges but contempt.

Marcos attended college at the University of the Philippines, attending the prestigious College of Law. He excelled in both curricular and extra-curricular activities, he was a valuable member of the university's swimming team, boxing, and wrestling. He was also an accomplished and prolific orator, debater, and writer of the university's newspaper. He also became a member of the ROTC and later an instructor of the subject. He took the 1939 bar exam and topped it with almost a perfect score despite the fact that he was incarcerated when he was reviewing. In 1939, while incarcerated, Ferdinand Marcos graduated cum laude. If he had not been put in jail for twenty seven days, he would have graduated magna cum laude. He was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu international honor society, and the Phi Kappa Phi international honor society which, 37 years later gave him its Most Distinguished Member Award.

He claimed to have led a 9,000-man guerrilla force called Ang Maharlika in northern Luzon during the Second World War, although his account of events was later cast into doubt after a U.S. military investigation found that many of his claims were false or inaccurate.