After several decades dedicated to cleaning up his family’s image, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the eponymous dictator of the Philippines, is on his way to regaining power for his clan in the presidential elections.
With a campaign aimed at painting his father’s dictatorship as a period of peace and prosperity, Marcos Jr. appears as the clear favorite in the opinion polls for the May 9 elections.
The election would mark the Marcos’ return to the top of Philippine politics 36 years after the popular uprising against the dictator and the family’s exile in the United States.
The father of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Nicknamed “Bongbong,” Marcos Jr. lost the 2016 vice-presidential election in a narrow vote against opposing attorney Leni Robredo.
Who currently appears as his main rival to access the head of state.
Vowing to unite the country, the late dictator’s 64-year-old son wants to fight unemployment.
As well as by the inflation caused by the pandemic in this archipelago highly dependent on tourism.
“Unity is my cause because I have the firm conviction that it is the first stage towards an exit from the crisis,” said Marcos Jr.
Duterte’s ally
Although he dreamed of being an astronaut as a child, “Bongbong” ended up following in his father’s footsteps and entered politics.
The then-teenager was studying in England when his father declared martial law in the Philippines in 1972 to assert his power.
In a country that seems to have forgotten the darkest episodes of that regimeMarcos Jr. defends the “political genius” of his father.
In addition, he praises the economic growth and public investment in his mandate while forgetting the corruption and mismanagement that ended up impoverishing the country.
death of the dictator
After the dictator’s death in Hawaii in 1989, the Marcoses returned to the country and began their remarkable revival.
Which they took advantage of their local connections to get elected to a series of high public positions.
Marcos Jr. was deputy governor twice in the province of Ilocos Norte, the birthplace of the family.
He was also elected to the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The legacy of his father, the author of a bloody crackdown during the years of martial law, makes “Bongbong” one of the most divisive politicians in the country.
disinformation campaign
But his team knew how to take advantage of social networks to launch a broad disinformation campaign against young people.
Who did not know the heavy hand or the large-scale corruption of the 20 years of dictatorship.
His rehabilitation cannot be separated from the accusations of corruption that the post-dictatorship governments have continued to provoke and the unequal distribution of wealth that has been perpetuated.
Wanting to avoid the mistakes of the 2016 campaign, in which he was overwhelmed by questions about his family, Marcos Jr. has disdained the discussions and he has agreed very few interviews, in which he has not been comfortable.
Disqualification from the presidential race
His opponents tried to disqualify him from the presidential race, citing a previous conviction for underreporting his income and accusing him of lying about his diplomas and failing to pay nearly $4 billion in probate fees.
But from the beginning, Marcos Jr. stood out as the winning horse and even won the support of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, who had described him as “weak”, and his daughter Sara, who is running for the vice presidency.
Some see this support as an attempt by Duterte, the subject of an international investigation for his deadly war on drugs, to avoid persecution when his term ends.
Despite his wide lead in the polls, Marcos Jr. told CNN Philippines “I’m still not sure I’m going to be president.”
“We’re not there yet,” he said.
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