Or what if he'd allowed Laurel to be elected VP? Then he could claim "national unity". The mistake was ordering Aquino's assassination. The economy could be relatively stable. He'd already discredited N. Aquino with Ninoy's approval of martial law until Marcos imprisoned him. Unlike Armored Dinner Jacket, the COMELEC returns were fairly close, 53-47, or 1.6 million votes. GMA's relatively clean 2004 marginwas 1.2 million. As dictators go, he would be at most 5/10 in oppression. The problem was that he was terminally ill and refused to resign. Isn't that why the military got fed up? They wanted Enrile in there, since he was doing day-to-day governance after 1980 while Marcos drew up hit lists for extrajudicial action in hospital.