At 7:17 pm on September 23, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos announced on television that he had placed the entirety of the Philippines under martial law. This marked the beginning of a 14-year period of one-man rule that would effectively last until Marcos was exiled from the country on February 25, 1986. Even though the formal document proclaiming martial law – Proclamation No. 1081, which was dated September 21, 1972 – was formally lifted on January 17, 1981, Marcos retained essentially all of his powers as dictator until he was ousted.