Elected president in 1965, he won a second term in 1969. But in 1972, he declared martial law, imprisoned his political opponents, dissolved congress, suspended habeas corpus and used the army as his private police force. He then wrote a new constitution giving himself considerably more power. His wife, Imelda, and other family members were given lucrative government posts. While the Filipino people lived in abject poverty, the Marcos flaunted their extravagant lifestyle, Imelda becoming world-renowned for her huge collection of shoes. (While the acquisition of shoes may no doubt be a laudable enterprise, especially from a shoe manufacturer’s point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether it merits keeping an entire population in misery.)

In 1981, Marcos ended martial law, but continued to rule by decree. Opposition leader Benigno Aquino, who had gone into exile after being imprisoned for eight years by Marcos, returned in 1983, but was shot dead on the orders of Imelda if front of a plane full of journalists after he had landed at Manila. This sparked riots. An official enquiry blamed a high ranking general Fabian Ver. A family friend of Marcoses, Ver was acquitted when the case went to court.

Information about Ferdinand Marcos

Written by Vassil Dimitroff

We can extrapolate, then, thisutterly unavoidable conclusion from the facts: if natural selection can and does maintain every last continuously varying species in adaptation to a stable environment, that it preserves the immutability of its typical condition. Almost every objector agrees with this viewpoint. In a slowly changing environment, the same phenomenon should unavoidably produce some related change is needed for the well-being and enduring survival of the various species who are subjected to those changed conditions.

I won’t include a further consideration of the dissents professed by critics of the theory. They have, I believe, been amply answered by Darwin and other evolutionary biologists. Some of the most recent have been hashed out in review articles such as the series I am presently posting. The word extinction is a more powerful word than natural selection, but what we really are talking about is the maladapted species who perish while those more adapted survive.

The evolution creationism controversy debate has heightened in the last 20 years, and especially in the last 10. It is posing an unlucky diversion from our undertaking of the further refinement of knowledge, theory and understanding within the study of evolutionary biology. We in the scientific discipline are no doubt frustrated by this, and perhaps we find as a release valve for this frustration a good dose of wit on the sometimes ridiculous debate regarding evolution, creationism and intelligent design.