Blast from the Past

On February 25, 1986, Ferdinand Marcos and his family fled to Hawaii (via Guam) after his regime was toppled by the four-day People Power Revolution in EDSA. Marcos was succeeded by Corazon C. Aquino, widow of Benigno Aquino, Jr., Marcos' foremost political opponent, who was assassinated at the Manila International Airport during his return to the Philippines in 1983 after years of political exile. It was widely assumed that Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were involved in the assassination, which ignited the People Power Revolution of 1986. Upon assuming office, President Aquino issued Executive Order No. 1, creating the Presidential Commission on Good Government to investigate and sequester the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses. President Aquino abolished the Batasang Pambansa (Philippine Parliament) and the Ministry of Human Settlements, both creations of Marcos, and established in 1987 a modified version of the Philippines' original 1935 constitution, which had been abolished in 1972 by Marcos.

After the Marcos family fled Malacañang Palace, Marcos was found to have left behind 15 mink coats, 508 gowns, 1000 handbags^[12] and 3000 pairs of shoes. The exact number of shoes varies between accounts; estimates of up to 3000 pairs of shoes have been published,^[13] but Time later reported that the final tally was 1,060.^[14] In 1992, Marcos claimed that her fortune came from Yamashita's Gold.^[15] In February 2006, Marcos insisted that her husband had acquired his wealth legitimately as a gold trader. By the late 1950s, she claimed, he had amassed a personal fortune of 7,500 tons of gold, and after gold prices climbed in the 1970s, the Marcos family was worth about $35 billion.^[8] However, the Bureau of Internal Revenue has no record of the Marcos family declaring or paying taxes on these assets^{[citation needed]}, and the source of their wealth remains open to investigation.^[8]

Ousted President Marcos died in exile on September 28, 1989. President Aquino refused to permit the repatriation of his remains for national-security reasons.^[16] The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the government in Marcos vs. Manglapus.^[17] In 1991, Marcos was allowed to return home. Marcos was the first wife of a foreign head of state to stand trial in an American court. In 1990, she was acquitted of racketeering and fraud charges, alongside co-defendant Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian former billionaire and arms dealer. The "theatrical" trial involved many celebrities: Marcos and Khashoggi were represented by trial lawyer Gerry Spence; Marcos' $5-million-dollar bail was posted by tobacco heiress, Doris Duke,who befriended her while they both lived in Hawaii; and actor George Hamilton was a star witness for the defense.

In 1992, Mrs. Marcos ran and finished fifth in the seven-way presidential race. Her votes were split between her, with 2,338,294 votes, and Ambassador Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr., a close advisor and friend of Ferdinand Marcos, with 4,116,376 votes. Fidel Ramos, the candidate endorsed by Corazon Aquino, received 5.3 million and won the election.^[19]

In 1995, she was elected Congresswoman of Leyte, representing the first district of her home province. She overwhelmingly defeated then Rep. Cirilo Montejo by a landslide victory (70,471 votes against Montejo's 36,833 votes). Initially, a disqualification case was filed against her but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of her.

1998 presidential campaign

In 1998, she made another bid for the presidency but later backed out of the race to support the candidacy of then Vice President Joseph Ejercito Estrada. Marcos finished 9th among 11 candidates vying for the Philippine government's top post. During the administration of her friend and ally, President Joseph Estrada, many of the cases filed by the Aquino government were dismissed by Ombudsman Aniano Desierto, owing to technicalities (lapse of the prescriptive period for filing cases). On June 29, 1998, the Sandiganbayan (Philippine anti-corruption court) convicted the Former First Lady of the charge that she had entered into an agreement disadvantageous to the government. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the decision and cited Sandiganbayan Justice Francis Gatchitorena for his alleged bias against Mrs. Marcos.