Amazon.com description: Product Description: The Philippine dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos was characterized by family-based rule and corruption. This sultanistic regime - in which the ruler exercised power freely, without loyalty to any ideology or institution - had to be brought down because Marcos would never step down. In this study, Mark Thompson analyzes how Marcos's opponents in the political and economic elite coped with this situation, and why their struggle resulted in a transition to democracy through people power rather than through violence and revolution.