Jailyn R.

Noveda
JPL

Marcos vs Nalundasan

Julio Nalundasan (July 21, 1894 – September 20, 1935) was a Filipino politician who fought
Ilocos Norte politician Mariano Marcos, the father of Ferdinand Marcos (who later became the
tenth President of the Philippines).
Nalundasan was assassinated at his home in 1935, the day after defeating Marcos for the second
time in elections for the second district of Ilocos Norte. Ferdinand Marcos, Mariano Marcos' son,
and Quirino Lizardo, Mariano Marcos' brother-in-law, were later convicted of the murder. The
conviction, however, was overturned by the Supreme Court of the Philippines in a decision
rendered by then Associate Justice Jose P. Laurel.
On January 11, 1940, Quirino Lizardo and his nephew Ferdinand Marcos, who won the highest
honors in the 1939 bar examinations, and son of former Assemblyman Mariano Marcos, were
convicted of murder of Julio Nalundasan, Assemblyman-elect in 1935. Mariano and his brother
Pio were found not guilty.
Because Lizardo was underage at the time of the crime, he received a life sentence, while
Ferdinand Marcos received a sentence ranging from 10 to 17 years.
On October 22, 1940, the Supreme Court acquitted Ferdinand and his uncle of murder charges,
overturning a lower court ruling and ruling that the evidence of the chief witness was "polluted"
and not a sound basis for conviction. Justice Jose P. Laurel wrote the decision, with Chief Justice
Ramon Avancea and Justices Carlos Imperial, Anacieto Diaz, and Antonio Horrilleno concurring.
An unidentified assassin shot and killed Representative Julio Nalundasan, who had been
reelected to the Assembly after defeating Mariano Marcos, on September 20, 1935, while
standing in front of his window after dinner at his home in Batac, Ilocos Norte.