About the author: Ferdinand E. Marcos (September 11, 1917– September 28, 1989), politician, dictator; please see profile in the Presidential Museum and Library website.

About the diary: The entries published on this site come from several sources. The diaries were written in longhand, more often than not, on official stationery, by President Marcos. There were some contemporary transcriptions, and transcriptions of portions of the diaries have been made over the years by different institutions, whether the Presidential Museum and Library, the Presidential Commission for Good Government, or media and the public. The diaries have not been officially published. However, a survey of the diaries was first published as Delusions of a Dictator: The Mind of Marcos As Revealed in His Secret Diaries, by William Rempel. See also his online article, The Marcos Diary: At the heart of a dictator, which introduced the latest edition of his work, now titled Ferdinand & Imelda: The Last Days of Camelot. The noted Philippine historian Ambeth Ocampo has been working on an annotated edition of the diaries.

We hope to have both scans of the diary pages and transcriptions of those pages online. The scans and existing transcriptions have been sourced as follows:

1. A set belonging to Manuel L. Quezon III, received anonymously as a large stack of Xerox copies:

1969 July, December

1970 January, February, March, April, May

1971 January, February

1972 September

1973 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November

1974 May, August, September

1975 February, April, May, June, July

1976 February, April, May, November, December

1977 January, February, March, November

1978 February, October, December

1979 January

1983 January

These can be easily seen as being scans with a white background.

2. Other entries, provided by contributors or sourced from around the Internet: We are grateful to journalist Veronica Pedrosa for allowing us to include her transcriptions of the diary entries for September 20-23, 1972, and to reproduce the scans she used in her blog. March 9, 1970, November 10, 1970 and April 3, 1971 are taken from facsimiles posted online in William Rempel’s article linked to, above. These also have a white background. The text of the entries for March 28-29, 1972, come from a column of Ambeth Ocampo. Others are sourced from transcriptions of diary entries –without facsimiles of the hand-written originals. In these cases, the absence of a scan of the hand-written facsimile should caution readers that these are transcriptions.

3. The Presidential Museum and Library, which has a partial set of bound Xerox copies:

1970 January, February, July, August, September

1971 February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September

1972 October, November, December

1975 May

1977 March, April, May, June

These are easily seen as being scans with a brownish background. The PML very kindly also provided an initial transcription of these pages.

4. The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG): The PCGG in a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2016 with historians made digital copies of its holdings of the Marcos diaries available. They were provided organized into the following sets:

July-December, 1969

January-February, 1970

March-May, 1970

October 31-November 1-24, 1970

January 1-13, 1971

January 19 to February 1, 1971

February 1-17, 1971

February 18-March 8, 1971

March 9-23, 1971

March 25-April 1, 1971

April 2-14, 1971

April 15-25, 1971

April 26-May 10, 1971

May 10-June 16, 1971

June 17-30, 1971

July 1-31, 1971

August 1-31, 1971

September 1-31, 1971

October 1-31, 1971

November 1-30, 1971

November 25-December 29, 1971

December 1-31, 1971

January 1-31, 1972

February 1-29, 1972

March 1-31, 1972

April 1-30, 1972

May 1-31, 1972

June 1-30, 1972

July 1-31, 1972

August 1-31, 1972

September 1-30, 1972

October 3-31, 1972

November 1-30, 1972

December 7-31, 1972

January 1-31, 1973

February 2-28, 1973

March 1-31, 1973

April 1-30, 1973

May 1-31, 1973

June 1-30, 1973

July 2-31, 1973

August 1-27, 1973

September 1-30, 1973

October 1-31, 1973

May 1974

February 1975

April 1976

June 1976

November 1976

January 1977

February 1978

March 31, 1984

These can also be easily seen as being scans with a white background. These sets were also accompanied by transcriptions labeled as follows:

Marcos Diary Type Written Vol. 1 (1969-70)

Marcos Diary Type Written Vol. 2 (1971)

Marcos Diary Type Written Vol. 3 (1972)

Marcos Diary Type Written Vol. 4 (1973)

Marcos Diary Type Written Vol. 5 (1974-1984)

At present, there seems to be no complete collection of the diary, whether in original, handwritten form or as xerox copies, anywhere.