Presidential elections, commonly referred to as the 1986 snap election, were held in the Philippines on February 7, 1986. Incumbent president Ferdinand Marcos, facing pressure from the public, media, and international allies, agreed to call an election in November 1985. He was challenged by Corazon Aquino, the widow of assassinated opposition leader Ninoy Aquino.
Marcos called for the snap elections in an attempt to reassert legitimacy for his regime, which had ruled the Philippines for two decades, including a period of martial law from 1972 to 1981. However, Marcos was terminally ill and faced a series of challenges to his rule, beginning in 1983 with the Ninoy Aquino assassination, a period of rapid economic decline and civic discontent, and widespread public reporting on corruption and Marcos's misrepresentation of his military record.
The election itself was marred by substantial irregularities, political repression, and voting fraud. After the certified government results found Marcos had won, Aquino and the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) challenged the legitimacy of the results through a campaign of mass demonstrations and civil disobedience, culminating in Marcos's deposition and exile. Aquino was inaugurated as the 11th president of the Philippines on February 25, and the Fifth Philippine Republic was established. Marcos later died in exile in Honolulu.
Ferdinand Marcos was elected president of the Philippines in 1965 and re-elected in 1969. Despite his 1940 conviction for murdering his father's political rival, which was overturned on appeal, Marcos built a popular public image on his service record in World War II, when he was held as a prisoner of war by the Imperial Japanese Army, and his support for public spending on infrastructure projects. Throughout his political career, Marcos often exaggerated or misrepresented his military record, including claiming during his 1962 campaign for the Senate that he was "the most decorated war hero of the Philippines."
As president, Marcos received support from the Philippine armed forces and the United States, where he supported presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon in the Vietnam War. Following a period of social unrest, political violence, and a balance of payments crisis, and facing a two-term constitutional limit, Marcos declared martial law in September 1972, establishing himself as dictator through a 1973 constitutional plebiscite. He cited threats by radical communists and Muslim separatists, as well as the failed 1971 constitutional convention, to support his rule; critics accused him of exaggerating these threats to silence opposition. Martial law was lifted in January 1981.
During the period of martial law, Marcos marginalized and suppressed opposition politicians. Among the leaders of the opposition was Ninoy Aquino, who had been sentenced to death by a military commission but whom Marcos permitted to travel to the United States in 1980 for emergency triple bypass surgery. Aquino remained in the United States for three years, working at Harvard University, writing, lecturing, and becoming an iconic symbol of Philippine democracy and resistance to military rule.
In 1983, Aquino returned to the Philippines, as stipulated in the conditions for his release from prison. At the time, Marcos was seriously ill, and Aquino believed he could persuade Marcos to restore democracy before his death. However, Aquino was shot and killed aboard China Airlines Flight 811 while taxing at Manila International Airport. Sixteen military officers were later convicted for their involvement in the murder; while the Aquino family believed that Marcos had ordered it, no definitive proof has ever surfaced.
The assassination revived the domestic opposition, including in the press, and elevated Aquino's wife, Corazon, to the role of a central opposition figure. In the 1984 parliamentary elections, the opposition re-established its political power by winning thirty-five seats in the National Assembly under the banner of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO).
The end of military rule and the Aquino assassination led to increased scrutiny of the Marcos regime by the domestic and international press, beginning with a December 1982 article by Eduardo Lachica in The Wall Street Journal Asia, investigating the Marcos family's landholdings in New York City. The story was picked up in January 1985 by the San Jose Mercury News as part of a story on capital flight in the Philippines involving the Marcoses and their allies. Investigative reporters at the Mercury News revealed extensive holdings by members of the Philippine elite in New York, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The series was reprinted in several Philippine local sources, leading to mass protests and an attempt to begin impeachment proceedings against Marcos. Marcos acceded to a brief independent inquiry into his conduct.'
Additional reporting in the Mercury News, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times further painted the Marcos regime as a kleptocracy which extracted money from the United States, including money intended for humanitarian or other aid, and the Philippine public for personal gain. Although Marcos denied the allegations, they severely damaged his support in the United States and the Philippines.
On November 4, 1985, Sam Donaldson and George Will interviewed Marcos on the American Broadcasting Company political affairs program This Week with David Brinkley. Marcos was being asked about his policies and public support when, without warning, he announced that he would hold a snap election on February 7, 1986, a year earlier than the supposed 1987 election. Marcos said that in the snap election, the vice president would also be determined, but that the final decision regarding the election would be determined by the National Assembly. Despite initial concerns that the National Assembly, which was controlled by Marcos's New Society Movement, would not hold the elections, they passed a law on December 3, 1985, setting the date of the election on February 7, 1986.
The opposition was divided between Corazon Aquino, the widow of their assassinated leader, and Salvador Laurel, the son of former president Jose P. Laurel. Archbishop of Manila Jaime Sin talked to both candidates. Aquino was hesitant to run but said she would be willing to run if a petition campaign with at least a million signatures supported her. Doy was earnest to run, since he believed his family background, training, and experience had prepared him for the presidency.
The campaign period lasted 45 days from December 19, 1985, to February 5, 1986.
As the election campaign continued, Marcos was able to campaign in selected key cities while Aquino was able to campaign intensively and extensively, even going to remote places from the north of the Philippines to the south of the Philippines. The Aquino campaign concluded a rally in Rizal Park and Roxas Boulevard that is believed to have 800,000 participants, forming a "sea of yellow".
On February 4, Marcos declared February 6 and 7 as nationwide public holidays to "give all registered voters fullest opportunity to exercise their right of suffrage."
About 85,000 precincts opened at seven o'clock in the morning of Election Day. Each precinct was administered by a Board of Election Inspectors (BEI), which was tasked to oversee voting. The BEI did not continuously abide by the stipulated voting procedure, which raised the impression of fraud.
The voting period was also scheduled to close at three o'clock in the afternoon but was extended to give way for people who were in line. Counting of the ballots followed and in most precincts was able to finish by six o'clock in the evening.
Results showed that a huge percentage of eligible voters did not vote. Out of the 26 million registered voters, only 20 million ballots were cast. This showed a decreased percentage of voters from the 1984 election, which had 89% of registered voters cast their ballots, to around 76% during the snap election.
A number of disenfranchised voters were evident during the snap election.
The COMELEC proclaimed Marcos as the winner, receiving more than 1.5 million votes more than Aquino. In the COMELEC's tally, a total of 10,807,197 votes was for Marcos alone. Conversely, NAMFREL's partial tally had Aquino leading with more than half a million votes.
The conduct of the election led to popular belief that the polls were tampered with and the results were fraudulent. The following days consisted of debates and actions as a sign of aversion to the conduct of the election. But in the end, international observers declared that the "election of February 7 was not conducted in a free and fair manner" due to the influence and power of the Marcos administration. The International Observer Delegation stated that Marcos's proclamation of victory was invalid because the Batasan "ignored explicit provisions of the Philippine Electoral Code requiring that the tampered or altered election returns be set aside during the final counting process, despite protests by representatives of the opposition party." After further investigation, a multinational team of observers cited cases of vote-buying, intimidation, snatching of ballot boxes, tampered election returns and the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters.
On February 9, thirty-five computer programmers walked out of the COMELEC's electronic quick count at the Philippine International Convention Center, some fearing for their safety and seeking sanctuary in Baclaran Church. The techniciansâÂÂwhose protest was broadcast live on national televisionâÂÂclaimed that the Marcos camp had manipulated the election results.
Cardinal Ricardo Vidal, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, declared, "If a government does not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people, then it is our serious moral obligation as a people to make it do so." The declaration called on "every loyal member of the Church, every community of the faithful, to form their judgment about the February 7 polls," and "[n]ow is the time to speak up. Now is the time to repair the wrong. The wrong was systematically organized. So must its correction be. But as in the election itself, that depends fully on the people; on what they are willing and ready to do." The United States Senate passed a resolution stating the same. Opposition from the Church and the United States eventually led to the resignation of defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Armed Forces vice chief of staff Fidel V. Ramos, who secluded themselves in the military and police headquarters of Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame, respectively. In response, the People Power Revolution was held from February 22 to 25, 1986, which toppled the Marcos dictatorship.
Aquino was praised in the American press:
Although Marcos died in exile in 1989, many of his supporters remained powerful in government and society. Fidel Ramos was elected to succeed Aquino as president in 1992. The Marcos family have gone to great lengths to reestablish his reputation in the Philippines, including through a campaign of historical revision. As of 2026, his son Bongbong Marcos is president of the Philippines, having won the 2022 presidential election in a landslide.
A number of individuals who were killed in an effort to protect the integrity of the 1986 Philippine presidential election have been formally honored as "heroes" at the Philippines' Bantayog ng mga Bayani (). These include Jeremias de Jesus, Evelio Javier, Francisco Laurella, Salvador Leaño, Fernando Pastor Sr., and Michael Sumilang.
The snap elections and their aftermath are dramatized in the 1988 film A Dangerous Life.