THE persisting agony faced by President Ferdinand E. Marcos during martial law was the legitimacy of his brutal and corrupt regime. In the process, a number of legal measures were established, including the formation of local community units, later called barangays, which became the venue of the ratification of his self-serving 1972 Philippine Constitution. However, as Marcos very well knew, the only justification for the imposition of martial law was the success of the economy. Indeed, he was trading off basic human rights for economic gains in order to justify his hold on power.