Speech
of
His Excellency Ferdinand E. Marcos
President of the Philippines
During the termination of Martial Law

[Released on January 17, 1981]

ENCOUNTER
WITH
DESTINY

History summons us once more to an encounter with destiny.

This is the privileged fate of our generation, yours and mine: that it has been called upon twice by history to serve, to risk life and honor, in the hour of crisis and the hour of need. The first time, of course, was when we had to fight a war, a war not of our making in order to defend our country. The second time was when we had to impose on ourselves, eight years and four days less than four months of a martial discipline in order to save the Republic.

Today, we are privileged once again. We have another encounter with that destiny.

The magnitude of this moment necessarily brings us back to the very first crisis in the life of our people, when nearly a century ago, our forbears—in Pugad Lawin and Tirad Pass, in Kawit and Malolos—offered their lives, happiness and, most valuable of all, their sacred honor to a quest that we pursue to this very day: the great quest for a New Society.

This was and has ever been the Filipino dream, a dream of a new order of national existence, a dream thwarted for close to a century. We have had a hundred years of solitude, a century of alienation from one another, a hundred years of humiliation and distorted values.

And so it was that eight years ago, the consequences fell upon us: a social order in which the privileges of the few were enjoyed over the degradation of the many. In sum, the social indifference of the elites spawned the rebellion which we then called the revolution of the poor, in which legitimate grievances were exploited by conspiracy and subversion to bring about destruction of the Republic of the Philippines—the death of a nation, through violent revolution.

Indeed, the perils which threatened the Republic then were brought about principally by the failure of the elites—the oligarchy—incarnated in a political society which deluded rather than educated the masses of our people in the ways of an authentic democracy. We had a political and social culture that was dominantly populist and opportunistic.

History has shown to us how societies are saved and regenerated in various ways. In the feudal ages, kings curbed the excesses of ruling barons or vice versa; at other times, parliaments checked the abuses of kings; still, in other periods, governments protected the common good against the rapaciousness of the ruling class. An example from recent memory was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s proclamation of the “The New Deal.”

Essentially, this was the point of what we have since called, “the Revolution from the Center,” which bought time for our people so that they could muster the strength to stem the tide of turmoil and rediscover their solidarity.

The old Constitution, colonial as it was, approved by an alien power as it was, nevertheless provided the legal and peaceful means for this quiet revolution. We were wise to have cherished and protected it.

And now we have a new charter, whose ratification we celebrate today; which we must cherish all the more, for it is our very soul—for it brings together a new system, a new national policy, and the resurgent spirit of a new people.

There are those who would denigrate this Constitution. I am afraid they live in the past of their lost glories, a past when the freedom and the happiness of a few was held up as the freedom and the happiness of the many. It was a long nightmare of a remembered greatness.

I am moved to recall how, sixteen years ago, I appealed for the support of our people with an invitation to greatness. Seven years later, the gravest peril was upon us, menacing our lives and freedom and the lives and freedom of generations yet to come—anarchy, assassination, arson, pillage, destruction, immobilization of the economy, destruction of public buildings, and the proclamation that a new government would take over the Republic of the Philippines. I saw that crisis as the test of Filipino greatness and I was elated that our people shared my vision.

That crisis, my friends and countrymen, is far from over—but we have proven ourselves in the past eight years to be equal to any such crisis.

To be sure, it had been necessary—imperative—to resort to the discipline of martial law, to summon the military to its sworn duty to defend and protect the Republic, but as events showed, contrary to our detractors’ cassandric warnings, our armed forces performed honorably and well. In accordance with the noble traditions of their warrior forebears, they upheld the flag of the Republic. But for the civil authority, they shall ever remain as a model, as an example that shall be set up. If in the days to come after this the Republic should ever stumble once again, our people will ask, how did the military of that decade of the 70s, how did these noble warriors and soldiers conduct themselves in those crucial days? And they sha^l point to you as the heroes whose lives they must emulate.

Yes, we owe them the highest commendation. Words are inadequate to express our gratitude to the men of the military and to the men of the civil government who quietly subordinated themselves in many cases whenever there was actual combat.

The martial discipline has restored the pride and self-confidence of our race, so that now we can look upon ourselves as equal to every vicissitude, every burden, every challenge.

We can now accept, without reservations, the invitation to greatness—the challenges of the modern world.

The cynical and the timorous who would doubt this had better look closely to what has transpired in this country in less than a decade.

In the eight short years of the New Society, we have disarmed the criminal syndicates and significantly defused the dangers of subversion, sedition, rebellion, and secession.

All over the world today, you see the same symptoms spread out among all the Third World countries. Fortunately here in the Philippines, those symptoms have significantly and substantially been reduced.

These were the results of the relentless and determined campaign to reestablish public order: 200 private armies dismantled; 250 criminal syndicates identified and their members apprehended and neutralized; 650 thousand firearms, within a period of 2 or 3 years, of all classes, make and variety, including artillery, machine guns, assault rifles, tanks, armored cars, and the latest models of sophisticated armaments, perhaps ten times more than the arms of the Armed Forces of the Philippines were confiscated or were surrendered to the government. More than 2,000 ordinary criminals long wanted under unserved warrants of arrest before the proclamation of martial law were immediately apprehended and brought before the courts.

The leftists and the rightists joining together in rebellion were successively apprehended, eliminated or neutralized, thus reducing the rebellion into small pockets of resistance in a few places.

The colonial, centuries-old hostilities in Southern Philippines between the Christian and Muslim brothers, which exploded, eight years ago, into formidable secessionist war, in which an estimated 20,000 fully armed men, some of whom were trained outside the Philippines, were set against the small garrisons of the police and the Philippine Constabulary while we were fighting the leftist-rightist bands here in Luzon, have been effectively terminated with the granting of amnesty to more than 37,000 members of the Moro National Liberation Front Movement. This plus the establishment of the two autonomous governments in Regions 9 and 12 effectively terminates that movement.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the intelligence agencies have succeeded in apprehending and immobilizing the leaders and the members of the Partido Nagkaisang Sosyalistang Demokratiko ng Pilipinas, or SOCDEM, which differs from all other socialist parties in that it promotes violence.

And so have the armed forces and the intelligence apprehended the leaders and the members of the Light-a-Fire Movement which seems to be the umbrella organization covering all those involved in terrorism, bombings, kidnapping, arson, blackmail, as well as plots and conspiracies for the assassination of leading personalities in the military and in the civil government.

But more than these, we have transformed the lives of millions of our countrymen. Land reform, the principal cause of the Hukbalahap uprising, because of the repeated failure of a landowner-controlled Congress to redress the grievances of centuries, was instituted.

Some of you who are listening to me now belonged to that rebellion. But you have joined the New Society. I see Assemblyman Luis Taruc. I see many of the rebels from the South attending here. I see Al Caluang, the regional field marshall of the Moro National Liberation Front. I see Commander Ronnie. I see Lucman. I see all these rebels who have raised the flag of intransigence against the Republic of the Philippines now joining hands in order to strengthen this commitment to the Republic for the maintenance of public order all over the land.

And why did the Hukbalahaps join hands with the government? Because large estates were broken up and sold to the actual tillers of the soil. Because we immediately terminated the enslavement of the poor tenant farmer who inherited generations and generations of indebtedness without any possibility of payment whatsoever from his forebears to the landlord. This we immediately redressed with a single stroke of the pen.

A new Labor Code was promulgated providing, among others, the joining together of management and labor with government, a tripartite conference for the settlement of issues, and thus assuring industrial peace to allow economic growth.

Social reforms also included the implementation of a nutrition program. There are now 4,000 day care centers all over the land. Ours is a model, which has been adopted by the United Nations—health program, a family planning program which had long been denied the humblest and the poorest of our countrymen.

Our educational system has been reoriented to meet the needs of social and economic development, with its emphasis on vocational and technical skills in high school so that graduates from high schools would be capable of earning a livelihood and would become self-reliant productive units instead of burdens to society. And in the colleges, science and engineering are emphasized. We have prepared ourselves for modern national existence through scientific research where before there was nothing but rhetoric and charlatanism.

We have instituted the researches. We have created an Institute of Plant Breeding and created exotic varieties of plants that have done well to increase our harvest. And now we have started an Institute of Microbiology which shall utilize the new science of recombinant DNA.

In the administration of justice, which, again, was one of the rebellions of the poor in our old society, we have assured our people expeditious, inexpensive, and democratized justice with the organization of barangay courts. The Interim Batasang Pambansa is in the process of reorganizing the judicial system of government with the participation of the Supreme Court, with the aim-in-view of eliminating delays, bottlenecks and clogged dockets in courts as well as the elimination of its unworthy members, few as they may be.

Our government has succeeded in reorganizing the national prosecution service and creating a nationally pervasive free legal service under the Ministry of Justice. We thus give substance to that constitutional and moral mandate that every man shall be entitled to his day in court.

The political transformation, above all, assures us of a truly democratic system. The organization of the barangays has brought about an explosion of political participation, as evidenced by the militancy of its members and by the participation of 23 million voters, whereas before in 1969 there were only 8 million voters.

I place my fervent hopes on the barangays and on the Sanggunians. They are the testament to, and the vehicle of, popular sovereignty. With the barangay, power, indeed, has been returned to the people. Mabuhay ang mga barangay.

The last eight years have also mobilized the energies of the Filipino for the economic health of his society—and, I believe, we have demonstrated our capacities fully.

Let us look at some of the data and statistics, with your permission. The Gross National Product increased from P55,526 million in 1972 to P192,911 million in 1979 at 1972 constant prices or P269,781 million at current prices.

Collection of government from taxes have increased from P5.1 billion in 1972 to P36.16 billion in 1980.

Total exports increased from US$1,106 billion in 1972 to US $5,935 billion in 1980.

Showing the stability of currency, notwithstanding the present fluctuations of the dollar, the rate of exchange of the pesos to the US dollar has barely moved from the 1972 6.6710 to the 1979 7.3775.

Savings and time deposits have increased from P5,402 million in 1972 to P49,116 million as of September 1980.

Gross domestic investments have not only doubled but trebled, quadrupled, quintupled.

From P11,573 million in 1972 it was increased to about P78,198 million in 1980, while gross national savings increased from P11,679 million in 1972 to P62,395 million in 1980.

There was a time when the debt service ratio before this administration was more than 40 percent of the dollar earnings the previous year. This has been reduced to 20 percent; and now, as of 1980, reduced to 18.72 percent of foreign exchange earnings in the previous year.

Incidentally, on the question of indebtedness, when I took over as President in 1965, most of the indebtedness were short-term indebtedness payable within one year, two years, three years, and five years. More than 90 percent. All of these were immediately shifted or converted into long-term indebtedness, for some reason or other, because of inefficient management of our affairs. Because of our bad credit worthiness, we could not borrow any money from anywhere. The most that the World Bank could lend us before 1965 was $40 million. By 1975 and 1976, the World Bank had changed its opinion of the Philippines so much so that it was ready to lend at a single time $500 million.

But most of these borrowings did not go to the government. They went into productive enterprises. The borrowings of government do not go to pay for salaries or what we, in government, call ordinary or current expenditures—housekeeping, salaries of officers and employees, as well as furniture and equipment. No. On the current budget there is always a surplus. Since 1965 to the present, there has always been a surplus in the current budget of the Republic of the Philippines.

Yes, we have borrowed but only for purposes of productive enterprise. These are the self-paying and the self-regenerating enterprises which we must support. And, incidentally, nobody lends you money if you cannot put up a counterpart fund. The least amount of counterpart fund that is required is about 50 percent of the entire cost of the project.

Now, let us go into international reserves. The international reserves were increased from practically zero in 1965. The statistics say US $282 million were left in the Central Bank. When I asked the Central Bank, however, I was told that our commitments exceeded US $300 million. And, therefore, we did not have enough foreign exchange to pay our indebtedness as of 1965. The foreign exchange reserves were practically zero.

And today, how much are the foreign exchange reserves? Today, we have US $3.1 billion in the Central Bank as the foreign exchange reserves of the Republic of the Philippines.

Finally, we speak of social indicators. How do all these affect the individual man? What is his individual income? The per capita income, if we must talk in terms of all the people, has more than trebled from US$214 in 1972 to US$755 in 1980.

And what do these figures mean to our masses, to our people? Some say the rich have grown richer and the poor have grown poorer. Well, we will not say they are blind to the facts. Let us say that they are prone to exaggeration.

It is true, of course, the rich will grow richer because they have the funds and the capital. And we have no intention of confiscating private property. It is not a part of the ideology of the New Society to confiscate private property and private enterprise. But we shall regulate wealth.

And we will regulate wealth so it shall not be utilized to brutalize the poor and the weakness of our people. And thus it is that the rich must pay heavier taxes. It is said that we have been easy on the rich with respect to taxes. This is not true. We increased the taxes on luxury goods—the goods that are bought by the rich. They are open only to the more affluent members of our society. Even in the case of oil products, did you notice the difference between diesel fuel and industrial fuel and gasoline? It is a big jump. For it is the purpose of this administration to see to it that, first of all, we shall not only regulate wealth, we shall ask those who are capable and those who participate in harvests, in the rewards of a progressive society to contribute what is just and proper to the maintenance of our Republic.

Yes, I have no doubt about it. The wealthy have been discouraged from exercising the ways of the old oligarchy. But I am prepared to think that even the rich among our people today have developed a social conscience that is growing day by day.

How often have they come to me, to the First Lady, to the members of the Cabinet offering contributions to worthwhile and noble projects. How often have they quietly done their own planning in order to uplift the poor and the degradation of our race and people. Let it not be said that because they are rich they are not patriotic Filipinos. Even the rich and the affluent of our country have acquired a conscience. And this is one of the developments in the New Society.

Now, let us look at the percentages as to the distribution of income. There are some who cannot seem to realize that this is a new world altogether, and that income is now seeping into all classes of people.

In 1972, the percentage of families with incomes of P1,999 and below was 24.3 percent. In 1979, this had been reduced to 11.2 percent, or by more than one-half. Let us go to the top, the families with incomes of P30,000 and more. In 1972, there were only 5 percent of them out of the entire population. Now, today, there are more than twice that. There are 12.8 percent of those who have this high income. And considering that almost all of these families that I speak of live in the rural areas, the New Society certainly has effectively changed the standard of living of the Filipino masses.

Finally, the effective minimum wage has increased from P4.75 in 1972 to P23.30-24.70 in 1980.

Along with these political, economic and social transformations, we must count our newly-won prestige in the family of nations.

Yes, the president of PHILCONSA, Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, referred to the new prestige, to the new standing of our country in the United Nations, in the world fora. We have led in the forums of the Third World and we have normalized relations with the socialist countries.

Before this administration, we closed our eyes to the Soviet Union and even to China, the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. We limited ourselves before to a few countries considered to be the pillars of the free world, and thus penalized ourselves and our products for our markets were limited.

The Philippines is now heard in the council of nations because it speaks with its own voice. And independent foreign policy is the hallmark of the Philippine foreign service.

We always speak of political independence but we do not realize that political independence must be won everyday. Every time there is any threat or doubt cast upon that independence, not only the leadership but the citizenry must rise up and protect that independence.

After much agonizing negotiations, the United States of America, in fairness to this ally of ours, recognized what is undeniable and that is, the sovereignty of the Republic of the Philippines over all the military bases here in the Philippines, including Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base, against the old Brownell doctrine which indicated that America retains sovereignty over the bases.

Because of our martial interlude, our defense establishment and our armed forces have quietly established a self-reliant defense posture.

As you know, the defense and military establishment is not proned to publicizing its achievements or to bragging about its capabilities, but very quietly, in the past eight years, not only has it trained its personnel to meet any contingency whether internal or external, it has systematically organized not only its own activities but also civil industry to meet most of its requirements.

The government, which itself needed reforms in the crisis of 1972, has been reorganized. How many have we kicked out of government? More than 6,000. In the armed forces, more than 8,800 men. Very few people know this. We kicked out of the civil government 6,000 officers and employees. And many of them are still facing cases and charges before the Sandigang Bayan and the Tanodbayan. In the Armed Forces of the Philippines we punished 8,800 officers and men over a period of eight years.

Let no man say that we have not exerted the utmost diligence in maintaining discipline in the enforcement of our laws and Constitution under the Republic of the Philippines.

Yes, we have eliminated the undesirable elements and we will continue the campaign against corruption through the establishment of the Tanodbayan which, as you know, is the Ombudsman, and the Sandigang Bayan which, as you know, is the court for corruption cases. We are now actually engaged in identifying the corrupt government officials and functionaries, prosecuting and punishing them.

Conscious of the hardships ahead, therefore, we have embarked also on an effort to upgrade the civil service.

And now, we have also met head-on this problem—the crisis on energy. We have accelerated the energy program, which includes the intensified search or prospecting for oil and gas and other hydrocarbons within our jurisdiction. We have discovered and are beginning to exploit new coal deposits. In the entire island of Semirara, we discovered coal deposits. In Cagayan Valley, in Bicol, Mindanao and Samar, we have discovered geothermal sources.

Eight geothermal units or geothermal centers of energy are operational. Six are being constructed. We are next to the United States in the volume of electric energy coming from geothermal sources.

Hydroelectric power is moving on. As you know, the biggest in Southeast Asia is being put up in Magat, Isabela.

We have discovered marsh gas or surface gas. We use biomass or dendro-thermal energy. Many of the countries here represented including France, Germany, England and the Scandinavian countries have lent us money for the dendro-thermal projects.

We have discovered exotic plants which produce juices that can burn like gas. Only the other day, the Hanga which I know since boyhood, which is a fruit of a vine in Ifugao, was shown to me again. We pressed the fruit and out came the juice, and we lighted it like gas. You go all over the lands, there are many plants from which we can draw gas. There are many conventional, indigenous, and renewable sources of energy which we must develop and we shall develop.

At this point, I must take note of the number of rural households that have access to electricity. In 1972, only 76,000 households had access to rural electricity. Today, there are one billion households that have rural electricity.

We are next to the United States in rural electrification. No other country has developed the way we developed rural electrification. This increase is symbolic of the renaissance of the Filipino.

There has been, of course, a renaissance in our political, economic, and social life in less than a decade of the democratic revolution. It is inevitable that this would be translated in spiritual terms—the renaissance in our culture, the rebirth and growth of the arts, music, painting, dance, film, and literature. And what is the importance of all of these? How often has song, dance, music, literature inflamed the masses to rise up to attain the ends of freedom? How often have our forebears, the propagandists of the last Century utilized literature in order to lay the moral basis for a rebellion that would free our country? Culture, tradition, belief in our past, these are the unifying forces. We look back, and as we trace the roots of our identity, we discovered that there is no reason to be humiliated and to apologize for the Filipino race. We have not only contributed our people’s genius to the arts of this century. We have also rediscovered our ancient art forms, our great spiritual heritage. In doing so, we have rediscovered our self—the Filipino.

The Filipino has reclaimed himself. And this is only the beginning.

The last eight years have shown what could be achieved through discipline. This decade, the eighties, will dramatize to us what can be achieved through self or inner-discipline. As a wise man of the last century once said, the essential thing is not to win battles. The essential thing is to win the internal revolution. The revolution within one’s heart, one’s mind, one’s soul. For, in the end, the transformation of a society means the transformation of man, each man.

Thus, from this onwards, we must be conscious and heed the invitation to greatness. National greatness, as we all know, means two things: the militancy of a concerned citizenry and the social commitment of a responsible elite, especially the intellectual elite. Let me repeat that. We shall need two things, the two weapons as we move forward from this day on: the militancy of a concerned and enthusiastic Citizenry and, at the same time, the commitment of motivated elite, especially the intellectual elite of our country.

We have had their support in the past. We need this more than ever now. I call upon all of you, call upon the members of PHILCONSA, the Batasang Pambansa, the local executives, the military men, whose training raised them over and above that of those who have not gone to college. This wide and deep reservoir of professional men—we have the highest percentage of college students all over the world except the United States in relation to population—from this elite, we must draw those who would be the leaders of our country in the next generation.

For the martial necessity has passed; it has served—and served well—the purpose of a once beleaguered people. It cannot go on, for a people must mature and must grow from outer discipline into inner discipline.

And so it is, that as I promised all of you, my countrymen, in that fateful morning of September 23,1972, when I announced the proclamation of martial law which had been signed by me two days earlier, with your support, placing myself, my life and my family’s life and honor, on the judgment of history, that when the time came, when we must end martial law—a time that could not be foreseen then—I would be the first to move and initiate the termination of martial law.

I have listened to you, to our people. I have heard your doubts, your anxieties, nay, outright opposition to the lifting of martial law. And I have prayed to the Almighty for guidance. And it is after deliberate, sober, judgment and soul-searching that I come before you and say, it is now time to terminate martial law.

As you trusted me before, as you have trusted me in many, many a time of crisis, as you trusted me during the war when many of you, many amongst you endangered your lives in order to protect me and the members of our guerilla band, trusting to the word of this man whom you did not know too well then. I ask you now, as you have trusted me before when I proclaimed martial law and said, follow me and I shall bring you to liberation and freedom, I ask you to trust me once again. And I ask you to trust in the judgment of your President as we eliminate this martial law and start a new era and a new day.

This exercise, for me, has been both an emotional and an intellectual adventure. Emotional since, like you, it involved not only my life and dreams and the life and dreams of my family, but our illusions and honor.

It was emotional because from the very start, the stakes were high and the undertaking was hazardous. Failure was often predicted by most of those whom we consulted. In fact, there were some who did not want to have anything to do with us. Only a few of the loyal men dared to sit down with me to plot and deliberate the steps that we must take in order to assure swift and efficient enforcement of martial law.

Characteristically, we were all haunted by the image of the guerrilla fighting—a losing battle in the hills. For that was what many of us who planned it were well aware we might have been. Yet notwithstanding all these doubts, one had to present the stern visage of the leader, the dominating personality of command and, at the same time, resolutely promise to each other that if necessary, we would go back to the tops of the mountains and, if necessary, fight those losing battles with a smile in our lips.

But thanks to the support of the Filipino people, it was not necessary to do that. For by an unusual spontaneous unanimity, upon the proclamation of martial law, one could hear the sigh of relief all over the land, from the North to the South, from the East to the West. I know then that we retained the trust of the entire Filipino people.

And yet, the visage of command had to be tempered with the credentials of legality and constitutionality. In this way was it an intellectual adventure. The Commander-in-Chief provision of the Constitution, of course, was contrived by the alien colonizer as a device to consolidate power over a colonized people. Never had those who drafted the Commander-in-Chief provision ever dreamt that it would be used instead by an abject and weak people to redeem their long lost self-respect, dignity and honor. In the long run, to be quite candid, the intellectual adventure became more exhilarating and inspiring.

Only the acute, legal observer will realize that the tables had been turned and that the legal weapon in the dark past that was used to browbeat our people down to their knees in submission to alien authority had been captured from the enemy, through ingenuity and by some miracle of self-assertion, and use to attain the noble dreams of our people.

And so, as I now sign this, proclamation in full view of our nation and the world at large, I am profoundly conscious of the tasks that, remain, hoping that we shall not lose the momentum of our achievements so that those who shall come after us may carry on the quest of a greater and brighter world, a New Society.

I pray now and I ask you to pray with me, as I prayed eight years ago, that I am doing, that we are doing, the right thing by our people; for the end of martial law does not mean the end of our efforts of our needed reforms, of our struggles, of our sacrifices. The passing of the martial necessity does not carry with it the passing of all the burdens especially the heavy ones. There will be more tests for our capacity, for our resiliency, for our strength as a people.

Together, we must pass these tests and surmount all crises. And, so, as I have said, as I sign this decree in your presence proclaiming the termination of the state of martial law throughout the Philippines, I say, we have just begun.

I will now read the dispositive portion of this decree. “Now, therefore, I, Ferdinand E. Marcos, President-Prime Minister of the Philippines by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby revoke Proclamation 1081, proclaiming a state of martial law in the Philippines; and Proclamation 1104, dated January 17, 1973, declaring the continuation of martial law and proclaim the termination of the state of martial law throughout the Philippines; Provided, that the call to the Armed Forces of the Philippines to prevent or suppress lawless violence, insurrection, rebellion and subversion shall continue to be in force and effect. And, Provided that, in the two autonomous regions in Mindanao, upon the request of the residents therein, the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall continue; and in other places the suspension of the privilege of the writ shall also continue with respect to persons at present detained, as well as others who may hereafter be similarly detained for the crimes of insurrection or rebellion, subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit such crimes, and for all other crimes and offenses committed by them in furtherance or on the occasion thereof or incident thereto or in connection therewith;

“General Order No. 8 is also hereby revoked and the military tribunals created pursuant thereto are hereby dissolved. . .

“Pursuant to Article XVII, Section 3, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, all proclamations, orders, decrees, instructions, acts promulgated, issued and done by the incumbent President, constitute part of the law of the land and shall remain valid, legal, binding and effective even after the lifting of martial law unless modified, revoked, superseded or altered by subsequent proclamations, orders, decrees, instructions or other acts of the incumbent President or unless expressly and explicitly modified or repealed by the regular National Assembly or the Batasang Pambansa.”

In witness hereof, I set my hand and cause the seal of the Republic to be affixed on the 17th day of January, 1981.

Source: National Library of the Philippines

Marcos, F. E., & Philippines. (1981). Encounter with destiny: termination of martial law : speech delivered by President Ferdinand E. Marcos proclaiming the termination of the state of martial law, Heroes Hall, Malacañang, January 17, 1981 : proclamation no. 2045, proclamation no. 1081, proclamation no. 1104 : a new age. [Manila] : NMPC.