With Bongbong Marcos currently preparing to become president of the Philippines, the country's most controversial political clan is firmly back at the pinnacle of power once more.

Bongbong's triumph marks 36 years since the revolution that ousted his brutal dictator father Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the nation with an iron fist – and embezzled billions in the process.

Read on to discover the remarkable story of the Marcos family's rise, fall, and rise again. All dollar amounts in US dollars. 

The political clan began with Fabián Marcos, who was born on 26 June 1873 to a prominent landowning family in Laoag, which is the capital of Ilocos Norte, a province in the north of the Philippines.

The patriarch later moved to nearby Batac and was the first Marcos to enter politics, serving as the city's gobernadorcillo ('little governor').

Fabián's son Mariano was born on 21 April 1897. A brilliant student, he graduated from what is now the Philippine Normal University in 1916 at the top of his class, bagging accolades for oratory and debating. Both were skills that would come in handy for the bright teen's future political career...

Not long after his graduation, Mariano married Josefa Edralin who, like him, was a descendant of a landowning family.

The newlyweds welcomed their first child, Ferdinand, on 11 September 1917. Ferdinand is standing on the right in this photo, which was taken in the late 1920s.

The couple went on to have three other children: son Pacifico (pictured left), who became a doctor; and daughters Elizabeth, the future governor of Ilocos Norte, and Fortuna (not shown in this photo).

After a period spent working in education and a stint in the army, Mariano studied law at the University of the Philippines and passed the bar exam in 1925.

Together with his brother Pio, the newly qualified attorney started a practice in Batac, then set up an office in Manila. He'd also made his first foray into politics by this point too.

Mariano had won the 1924 election to become representative of the second district of Ilocos Norte in the national legislature, where he ended up chairing several powerful committees.

The hopeful hotshot held on to his seat in the 1928 election but lost it in 1932, with the vote split between him and arch-rival Julio Nalundasan.

In September 1935, Mariano stood again for the National Assembly. However, he was beaten by Nalundasan, who taunted Marcos with a victory parade that passed by his house and included a "hearse" carrying Mariano's mock coffin.

This was symbolic in no uncertain terms of the death of Marcos's political career – and the ultimate demonstration of disrespect.

Mariano was reportedly left embarrassed and infuriated by this public display from his gloating nemesis.

The Marcos clan has become notorious over the years for its ruthlessness, and what happened next shows just how brutal they could be when somebody dared to cross them.

Less than 24 hours after his celebratory parade, Nalundasan was shot dead at his residence in Batac.

The evidence overwhelmingly suggested that the Marcos family was behind the assassination, with the key suspect Mariano's son, Ferdinand.

The 18-year-old was trained as a marksman and had been declared a national rifle champion just two years earlier. This made him more than capable of carrying out the Mafia-style hit, which only a trained sniper could have pulled off.

Three years after the killing, Ferdinand was prosecuted for the crime along with his father, uncle Pio, and another uncle named Quirino Lizardo. Mariano and Pio were acquitted but the court found Ferdinand and Lizardo guilty. Ferdinand received a life sentence.

Ferdinand (wearing the white suit) is shown here during the trial.

Languishing in jail, Ferdinand studied for his bar exam and passed with flying colours, following in the footsteps of his lawyer father.

The rookie attorney opted to represent himself when the murder case went to the Supreme Court, with his fight for acquittal attracting more than its fair share of publicity.

Astonishingly, Ferdinand's bid was successful and the case was quashed by a Supreme Court ruling in 1940.

The presiding judge José P. Laurel (pictured) had been convicted of murder then exonerated in his youth, and perhaps saw something of himself in the young Marcos.

Laurel's decision is also said to have been swayed by fellow judge Ferdinand Chua, Ferdinand's "godfather" and alleged biological father according to popular rumour at the time.

Released from prison, Ferdinand took the oath to become an attorney and started work as a trial lawyer.

During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, which lasted from 1942 to 1945, he was an officer in the nation's armed forces. Ferdinand later claimed he had been a leader in the Filipino resistance movement, which was a key factor in his early political success.

Yet US government archives show Ferdinand had very little involvement in the cause, with his so-called "resistance organisation" effectively a front for organised crime, with pickpockets, forgers, and gangsters all working for him.

The crooked attorney also put his legal skills to cunning use after the conflict had ended, making a number of false compensation claims to the US government on behalf of Filipino war veterans.

Meanwhile, US National Archives and Japanese war diary records suggest that Ferdinand's father had collaborated with the Japanese during the war. The nation reportedly made use of Mariano's speech-writing and delivery skills to spread pro-Japanese propaganda.

Mariano was arrested by the Luzon Guerrilla Armed Forces, some of whom were reportedly linked to Nalundasan, and convicted of treason.

He was executed on 8 March 1945 in the most grisly way imaginable: he was tied to two carabaos (water buffalos), which ran in opposite directions and effectively tore him limb from limb. 

However, the Marcos family told a very different story in a bid to cover up Mariano's grim ending. According to his official biography, he was killed by Japanese forces, not Filipino guerrillas.

Following the war, Ferdinand worked as an assistant to the president of the newly independent Philippine republic for a year before mounting a political bid of his own.

Making use of the celebrity he had gained from the Nalundasan murder case and playing up his supposed war heroics, Ferdinand ran for a seat in the House of Representatives as a Liberal Party candidate.

His campaign, which focused on securing veterans' benefits for two million Filipinos, won over the public and Ferdinand was duly elected in 1949 with a 70% share of the vote.

Once in office, he exploited his position by creaming off subsidies provided by America to support the country's tobacco industry. He also operated a vast cigarette-smuggling operation and solicited bribes from Chinese companies.

Within a year of his election, Ferdinand is said to have been worth a million US dollars, which is $12 million (£9.8m) in today's money.

Ferdinand met Imelda Romuáldez in April 1954 and the pair tied the knot after dating for just two weeks.

Ferdinand was evidently smitten with his glamorous bride. A former beauty queen, Imelda was feted for her looks and dubbed the "Rose of Tacloban" (the town where she had spent most of her childhood), as well as the "Muse of Manila" after the city where she was born on 2 July 1929.

Imelda gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter named Imee, on 12 November 1955.

Imee was followed by son Ferdinand Jr., who is better known today as "Bongbong", which is a popular Filipino nickname meaning "boy". He was born on 13 September 1957, while his younger sister Irene arrived on 16 September 1960.

By this point, the older Ferdinand was serving in the Senate and acted as the chamber's president from 1963 to 1965. He's shown here with the young Bongbong. 

Shown here in 1961, President Diosdado Macapagal had promised Ferdinand he'd eventually receive the Liberal Party's nomination. His motive was to garner the senator's support, but he ultimately reneged on the arrangement.

As a consequence, Ferdinand ran against Macapagal in 1965 as the opposing Nationalist Party's presidential candidate and ended up winning the hard-fought campaign. Marcos was inaugurated on December 30 1965.

The Marcos dynasty had finally found power. Ferdinand had inherited a thriving economy that was growing at a rate of 7-8% annually, yet by the time he stepped down in 1986, it had contracted rather than expanded.

During his first term, the president tapped foreign lenders for huge amounts of money to fund numerous grand infrastructure projects, a policy that initially went down well with the Filipino people. But the honeymoon period wasn't to last...

Exacerbated by the Marcos family's plundering of the nation's coffers and rampant crony capitalism, the ensuing out-of-control spending spree funded Ferdinand Marcos's second presidential election campaign in 1969. Time and Newsweek described the election, which Marcos won, as the "dirtiest, most violent and most corrupt" poll in Philippine modern history.

The vote was followed almost immediately by the balance-of-payments economic crisis, which culminated in high inflation and sparked widespread social unrest.

The resulting protests were violently suppressed, and in September 1972 Ferdinand tightened his authoritarian rule by imposing nationwide martial law, which massively curtailed citizens' rights.

The government continued to borrow like crazy, with its tendency to fund some infrastructure projects purely for propaganda purposes darkly referred to as its "edifice complex".

Any form of dissent was rapidly cracked down on. Thousands were imprisoned for their political beliefs and subjected to gruesome torture and, in many cases, even death.

One example is student Archimedes Trajano, who was tortured and murdered in 1977 after irking Ferdinand's daughter Imee with his difficult questions at a political event.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand and his "Steel Butterfly" Imelda, who herself had been given several high-ranking political positions over the course of what became known as the "conjugal dictatorship", were busy embezzling public money.

All in all, they are said to have stolen as much as $10 billion (£8.2 billion) from the Filipino people, with one writer even suggesting the total could be as high as $100 billion (£81.5bn).

So prolific was his swindling that Ferdinand reportedly even made it into the 1986 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records for "the greatest robbery of a government", although it's not listed on the official website.

A modern-day Marie Antoinette, Imelda was particularly reckless with her spending, famously splurging millions on luxuries that ranged from fabulous mansions and Bulgari jewels to Old Master paintings and haute couture.

And then there was the small matter of her shoes. The original "shoeaholic", Imelda owned thousands of pairs by top designers and local artisans alike. She's estimated to have had an astonishing 3,000 pairs, particularly favouring well-heeled brands including Gucci, Christian Dior, and Oleg Cassini. 

Martial law was lifted in January 1981 but Ferdinand still had a tight grip on power. With the Philippine economy in freefall, opposition to the regime was being led by Ferdinand's main rival, Benigno S. Aquino Jr. (pictured) – until Aquino's cold-blooded murder in 1983 that is.

Aquino's assassination at Manila International Airport (which was later renamed "Ninoy Aquino International Airport" in his honour) appalled the nation. It was clear who was behind the execution and this, coupled with the country's sorry financial state, helped galvanise opposition support.

Corazon Aquino, Benigno's widow, stood in her late husband's place for the 1986 presidential election, which was marred by violence and electoral fraud. Unsurprisingly, Ferdinand Marcos was declared the winner.

However, the news triggered a rebellion in the military, and nationwide protests, which became known as the "People Power Revolution". The Marcos family was ousted from power.

Together with Imelda and the rest of the family, Ferdinand, who had been tacitly supported by the US throughout his dictatorship, fled to Hawaii.

The nation they left behind was a shadow of its former self, and was being referred to as the "sick man of Asia", a nickname that it would take decades to lose. The deepest recession in Filipino history had just occurred, the poverty rate had jumped to almost 50%, unemployment was surging, and wages were heavily depressed. The country was also drowning in debt and is still paying off the foreign loans the Marcos regime took out today.

The Marcos family, however, did just fine, having smuggled enormous sums of money out of the country. They continued to lead a lavish lifestyle in Hawaii, where Ferdinand died on 28 September 1989 at the age of 72.

Two years later, Imelda and her children were permitted by President Aquino to return to the Philippines in order to face various criminal charges. To date, Imelda has miraculously avoided prison, having been acquitted of corruption several times.

Similarly fortunate is Bongbong. He landed his first political role in 1980 as vice president of Ilocos Norte, before standing for election to the House of Representatives in 1992. He served two terms, broken up by a period from 1998-2007 when he was governor of Ilocos Norte. Despite facing convictions for tax evasion and accusations of corruption, Bongbong became a senator in 2010. That very same year, Imelda won a seat in the House of Representatives and his sister Imee, shown here in 2016, was voted in as governor of Ilocos Norte.

Interestingly, Bongbong and his mother are effectively banned from travelling to the US as they were held in contempt of court for failing to respect a 1992 injunction on a human rights case.

Critics are wary that president-elect Bongbong will continue attempting to rewrite the history of his father's regime, promoting it as a period that was beneficial for the country, and using social media to widen the spread of misinformation with the aid of a group of supporters that he has openly called his "troll army".

This may help explain his recent presidential election win, which represents an astounding turnaround for a family who were once pariahs in their own country. 

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