1969 Philippine presidential election

← 1965 November 11, 1969 1981 →
Turnout	79.6% (3.2pp)
Candidate Ferdinand Marcos Sergio Osmeña Jr. Party Nacionalista Liberal Running mate Fernando Lopez Genaro Magsaysay Popular vote 5,017,343 3,143,122 Percentage 61.47% 38.51%
Presidential election results per province.
President before election Ferdinand Marcos Nacionalista Elected President Ferdinand Marcos Nacionalista
1969 Philippine vice presidential election
← 1965 November 11, 1969 1986 →
Candidate Fernando Lopez Genaro Magsaysay Party Nacionalista Liberal Popular vote 5,001,737 2,968,526 Percentage 62.75% 37.24%
Vice presidential election results per province.
Vice President before election Fernando Lopez Nacionalista Elected Vice President Fernando Lopez Nacionalista

The1969 Philippine presidential and vice presidential elections were held on November 11, 1969. IncumbentNacionalistaPresidentFerdinand Marcos was reelected to a second term, defeatingLiberalSergio Osmeña Jr., senator and formerCebu City mayor. Marcos was the last president in the entire electoral history of the Philippines who ran for and won a second term. His running mate, incumbent Vice PresidentFernando Lopez, was also elected to a third full term asVice President of the Philippines. A total of twelve candidates ran for president, but ten of those got less than 0.01% of the vote. Despite Marcos' win, Osmeña neverconceded defeat.

Constitutionally barred for a third term, Marcos sought to amend the constitution to allow him to do so. Aconstitutional convention was elected in 1970 for this purpose. Growing unrest led toMarcos declaring martial law in 1972. Months later, the constitutional convention passed a new constitution, which was subsequentlyratified in a plebiscite in 1973.Marcos then ruled by decree, and a presidential election would not be held againuntil 1981. The office of the vice president was abolished in the new constitution but was reinstated in1984, and an election for it was first heldin 1986.

The formal beginning of the 1969 campaign can be dated to the July 1969 meeting of the Philippines' Nacionalista Party, in which Ferdinand Marcos was formally nominated as the party's presidential candidate. A meeting of the party's ruling junta had met a week earlier to assure that the nomination would be unanimous.^[1]Ferdinand Marcos won his first campaign for the Philippine Presidency in November 1965, and was inaugurated just before New Year's Day in December the same year. Under the1935 Philippine Constitution which was in force at the time, Marcos was supposed to be allowed a maximum of two four-year terms as president.^[2]

With his popularity already beefed up by debt-funded spending, Marcos's popularity made it very likely that he would win the election, but he decided, as National Artist for LiteratureNick Joaquin reported in thePhilippines Free Press, "leave nothing to chance." Time and Newsweek would eventually call the 1969 election the "dirtiest, most violent and most corrupt" in Philippine modern history, with the term "Three Gs", meaning "guns, goons, and gold" coined to describe administration's election tactics of vote-buying, terrorism and ballot snatching

Marcos used the military and the government bureaucracy for his campaign,^[2] and also went on a campaign spending spree, initiating US$50 million worth in infrastructure projects meant to impress the electorate.^[3]

The most infamous incidents of violence took place in Batanes, where Philippine Constabulary officers, paramilitary groups and hired guns essentially took over the island, and motorcycle-riding thugs rode around terrorizing voters and Comelec officials, and beating up opposition leaders.^[2]

On April 5, 1969, at theSt. Francis Hotel,San Francisco,Marcos exposed Osmeña of collaborating with the Japanese inWorld War II.

Later on June 15, Osmeña won theLiberal Party nomination forPresident of the Philippines, and would run against incumbent PresidentFerdinand Marcos for the 1969 Philippine presidential election.Marcos spent US$50 million in infrastructure projects in an effort to improve the country.^[4] This rapid campaign spending was so massive that it would be responsible for the Balance of Payments Crisis of 1970, whose inflationary effect would cause social unrest leading all the way up to the proclamation of Martial Law in 1972. Marcos was reported to have spent Php 100 for every Php 1 that Osmena spent, using up to Php 24 million in Cebu alone.

Despite the electoral victory of president Marcos, Osmeña neverconceded defeat.^[8]

Marcos, who was term-limited in the upcoming 1973 election, proposed drafting a new constitution.An election in 1970 elected delegates to theconstitutional convention. Due to rising unrest, Marcosdeclared martial law and suspended the current (1935) constitution in 1972. The constitutional convention, which by then had seen its delegates opposed to Marcos dictatorship arrested or fled the country, then passed its draft constitution, anda plebiscite in January 1973 approved the constitution.A petition declaring that the 1973 constitution as unlawfully enacted was dismissed by theSupreme Court. Further plebiscitesin July 1973 and1977 extended Marcos's term, and a presidential election wouldn't be held again until1981.

• Commission on Elections
• Politics of the Philippines
• Philippine elections
• President of the Philippines
• 7th Congress of the Philippines
• Ferdinand Marcos 1969 presidential campaign

• The Philippine Presidency Project
• Official website of the Commission on Elections
• Ferdinand Marcos on the Presidential Museum and Library

• Presidential elections in the Philippines
• 1969 elections in the Philippines

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