(UPDATED) A 19-month-old video with over 552,000 views is again making the rounds online, propping up the late president Ferdinand Marcos with several untrue claims — including some which have been debunked several times over.
Posted by the YouTube channel sirlester channel on April 14, 2020, the video claimed:
- that Marcos has the highest bar exam grade in Philippine history. This is false.
- that the Philippine peso and economy were strong during his term. Untrue, the country’s economy lagged behind its neighbors.
- that he is the youngest elected politician in several positions. He was never elected to two of the positions mentioned, and he is not the youngest in those that he won.
- that he built the Manila International Airport. Wrong — Terminal 1 was built under his term, but the airport existed before he came into power.
We debunk the claims in detail below.
On Marcos’ bar exam grade
| Claim | Rating |
| Ferdinand Marcos obtained the highest bar exam grade among all lawyers, at 98.01% | False |
Retired Supreme Court Justice Florenz D. Regalado “still holds the highest score in the Philippine Bar Examinations,” said the Supreme Court’s Office of the Bar Confidant in an email to VERA Files Fact Check earlier this year. He got a grade of 96.7%.
Marcos topped the 1939 bar exams with a grade of 92.35%, not 98.01%, based on news reports published at the time. (Read: VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Post revives FALSE claim ex-president Marcos scored 98.01% in bar exams)
| Claim | Rating |
| Marcos retook the bar exam via oral recitation and got a score of 95%, still the highest bar exam grade in Philippine history | No Basis |
In an email to VERA Files Fact Check, Miguel Paolo Reyes, who is part of the Marcos Regime Research Group at the UP Third World Studies Center, said the story that Marcos got the highest bar score and that he re-took the exam via oral recitation is unsupported by literature prior to the publication of the Marcos-commissioned biography For Every Tear A Victory, published in 1964 and written by Hartzell Spence.
“We have not yet seen a pre-1964 profile of Marcos stating that he obtained the highest bar exam results in history. Best we can tell, that claim, and the unverifiable story that his score was lowered by the Supreme Court after a one-of-a-kind oral re-examination, were all fabrications put to print only in 1964… for campaign purposes,” said Reyes.
On Marcos being the youngest politician
| Claim | Rating |
| Ferdinand Marcos was the youngest mayor, governor, congressman, and senator | False |
Marcos was never elected mayor or governor, according to his profiles in the Presidential Museum & Library, the Senate, and the Department of National Defense.
He was considered the youngest congressman when he won the seat in 1949 at the age of 32. The record now belongs to Rep. Braeden John Biron who won as a representative of Iloilo’s 4th district in 2019 at the age of 25.
Marcos was 42 years old when he won a senatorial seat in 1959. But the claim that this was the youngest age when a senator took office is debunked by the current roster of senators. Sen. Manny Pacquiao was 37 when he was elected in 2016; senators Francis Pangilinan and Ralph Recto were also 37 when they first won their Senate seats in 2001.
On economic growth
| Claim | Rating |
| The Philippines was next to Japan in terms of economic growth in the entire Asia | False |
| The Philippines was called the “Tiger of Asia” | False |
The Philippines was never the strongest country in Asia after Japan in terms of economic growth during Marcos’ presidency from 1965 to 1986. We debunked this claim last month.
The country was neither the “Tiger of Asia” at the time. Economists have pointed out the historically low gross domestic product during the Marcos years, a huge external debt, and the decline of income per person after 1982 that was not seen in other countries.
On the Marcos-era exchange rate
| Claim | Rating |
| The Philippine peso exchange rate during Marcos’ term from 1965 to 1985 was P2.00 to US$1.00. | False |
The peso was never valued at P2.00 against the United States (U.S.) dollar during Marcos’ rule, based on data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
During his first year in presidency in 1965, a U.S. dollar was equivalent to an average of P3.90. The exchange rate dropped to P18.60 in 1985, according to BSP data. (See VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Post on ‘revised history books’ against Marcoses carries FALSE claims)
On Marcos gov’t spending
| Claim | Rating |
| Marcos administration’s total budget was P500 billion, Cory’s spent P1.0 trillion, Ramos’ admin utilized P1.5 trillion | Needs Context |
The Marcos administration’s expenditure amounted to P600.779 billion, the budget during Corazon Aquino’s term reached P1.364 trillion and the succeeding Ramos government used P2.237 trillion, according to a 2019 Rappler fact check article.
However, Department of Budget and Management officer-in-charge and undersecretary Tina Rose Canda previously told VERA Files Fact Check that inflation on a year-to-year basis may have been a factor in the difference between the budget used in Aquino and Marcos administrations.
On Marcos building Manila’s airport
| Claim | Rating |
| Marcos led the construction of the Manila International Airport (MIA), now renamed as the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) | False |
As early as 1948, the Philippines already had a Manila International Airport. After a terminal in the MIA was razed by fire in 1972, Marcos ordered the construction of a new international airport terminal now known as Terminal 1.
But the further development of the airport complex — including the creation of terminals 2 and 3 — were efforts spearheaded and continued by succeeding administrations. (See VERA FILES FACT CHECK: NAIA is NOT a Marcos project)
FB page DU30 MEDIA NETWORK (created in June 2016) reuploaded the false video on Oct. 7. A copy uploaded in November 2020 by FB page Philippine Political History (created in October 2020) garnered new comments as of last week, getting almost 685,000 interactions.
It continued to circulate as Bongbong Marcos, son of the late dictator, faced a petition seeking to cancel his candidacy for president for failing to declare his conviction in a tax evasion case. The election commission has set the hearing for the petition on Nov. 26.
Editor’s Note: In May 2022, a similar video bearing some of the same false claims, such as that Marcos Sr. scored 98.01% in his bar exam, was uploaded by a Facebook user. It garnered over 11,000 reactions.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
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