In Manila, A Marcos Again

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P Kharel

Thirty-six years after his father Ferdinand Marcos was compelled to step down and live in exile in Hawaii, his son triumphed in the presidential election last week. Popularly nicknamed Bongbong, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, 64, will become the 17th president at Manila’s Malacanang Palace next month, reviving to millions the memories of the Marcos decades at the sprawling mansion, when power was exercised and exhibited with ostentatious abundance. 

Opponents attribute Bongbong’s scintillating success to the social media, which were “used” to disseminate disinformation and rewrite history. The media manipulation made millions of people believe that the Marcos years were a period of prosperity even if maligned by opponents. The nearest rival and outgoing Vice President Leni Robredo remained a distant second in virtually every opinion poll survey result covering the archipelago with a population of 111.5 million. Apparently, people nursed a deep conviction that the Marcoses were not as bad as portrayed by their critics who had an axe to “grind”. 

But then, definitions of democracy loftily emphasise that no one should be punished for the wrongs committed by a parent or other relatives. Hence the red carpet set for being unrolled to the democratically elected leader whose antecedents were discussed threadbare for three and a half decades. Some might find the logic unnerving when an event affects them directly, forgetting the tent that democracy works on the basis of popular verdict. 

Back to square one

It so happens that this scribe, after a year-long preparation, made his debut as a columnist on world affairs in February 1986, shortly after the senior Ferdinand Marcos was compelled to step down as president after 21 years in the seat of power. Filipinos in massive numbers had rallied as “People Power” against Marcos for months, accusing him of rampant corruption and rigging the 1985 election. 

A close friend of the United States, the senior Marcos was given refuge to live in exile in Hawaii. Washington had brokered the agreement with the opposition leader Corazon Aquino who took over as the new executive head until a new Constitution was prepared in 1987 and fresh elections were held. Widow of the assassinated leader Benigno Aquino, Corazon was elected under the new constitution that allowed only a single term to any one elected to the top job in the capital Manila. 

The idea behind the constitutional ceiling was to ensure that no leader fell to the trap and temptations of clinging to power through aggravated political manipulation and machination designed to hold on to power for an extended period.

The determined Corazon Aquino sailed to the prized job without any prior political job. However, once in the high office, she wanted an extension by amending the Constitution. It was only the subsequent public outrage that made her withdraw the plan. Her successor Gen. Fidel Ramos, too, expressed a desire for a second term but met with the fate of his predecessor’s. In fact, Aquino openly opposed his extension bid. For the latest electoral contest, Bongbong joined hands with the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, Sara, who threw her hat in the ring for the vice-presidency and won with a thumping majority. 

Media as a weapon in feeding the public the slow poison of false information can be malicious — even dangerous. In theory, the declared purposes and practices of the press as a public platform are lofty. Putting the same into practice is, however, the professional staple of only a few. Some analysts attribute the Marcos Jr victory to supporters maximising the use of social media in shoring up their candidate’s image and softening his father’s negative image. 

Which is naïve, in that the same tool was available and employable to the rest of the ten-candidate race as well. And voters cannot be fooled after all these decades of public debate. Marcos Jr has passed a highly rigorous test. Opponents and critics of the Marcoses have spent 36 years denigrating and demonising them, accused as they are of having looted as much $10 billion from state coffers. 

The die is cast

Yet Bongbong has won after all these years of severe criticisms. Majority verdict — and a thundering one at that — should not go downgraded. Give the winner his due, having undergone such severe tests and public trial for more than three and a half decades. That is what any notable definition of democracy cited by most champions of democracy suggests.

In this respect, some of the news outlets with international reach should set their professional house in order instead of almost invariably tagging Bongbong as the son of the late “dictator”. In truth, the senior Marcos acted like a dictator especially after his first two terms in office, though “world leaders” of the Western accorded him a red carpet welcome in acknowledgement of his loyalty to their world strategies. 

But then not all facts are invoked with such relish and consistency when referring to the many the West holds in high esteem. Names of slave owning and slavery championing founding fathers and lofty leaders with double standards rarely figure for mention of less than palatable aspects of their lives and careers. Marcos Jr. did not hoodwink Filipino voters who had nearly four decades of discussion on him and his family. It has been a very long time for the electorate to make up mind with clarity of thought and determined decision to cast the lot with the man they pinned as the best in the race. 

The next six years should enable them to assess how their decision fared at the governance level in a country where the much promised agricultural reforms, and control of corruption and nepotism has made little headway than Filipinos in general would have deeply appreciated.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.) 

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