A Dictator’s Son Embraces His Father’s Legacy

As Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. widens his lead in polls for the upcoming Philippine presidential election, the candidate is starting to feel the demons of his dictator father’s rule nipping at his heels. So far, he’s outrunning them.

Marcos recently swept through the central Visayas region to hold campaign rallies, only for an event in Antique province to be called off after residents protested on social media. One of the aggrieved residents is the son of Evelio Javier, who was directing former President Corazon Aquino’s campaign against the elder Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 when he was shot dead by heavily armed men. The younger Marcos planned to hold his rally in Evelio B. Javier Freedom Park, the same place Javier was shot.

It’s a familiar scenario for Marcos, who has mostly brushed off his father’s atrocities to the point that those who remember the People Power rally of 1986, which ultimately toppled the dictator, feel like their own memories are being stolen from them. The legacy of his family name was once thought too toxic to so prominently reenter national politics, but Marcos served as vice governor in his father’s home province of Ilocos Norte, ran for vice president in 2016, allied with President Rodrigo Duterte, and is emerging as a clear frontrunner in the May 9 election.

Survivors of the elder Marcos’ rule have spoken out and begged the government to disqualify Bongbong from the poll. Loretta Rosales, a former history professor turned activist, recently told Agence France-Presse she had been tortured and gang raped by the dictator’s troops in the 1970s. She believes the younger Marcos will follow in his father’s footsteps by shutting down democratic institutions and media outlets while implementing martial law.

It’s not too far-fetched to suggest that Marcos could take such drastic measures. Duterte threatened to implement martial law on numerous occasions, and did so for over two years on the southern island of Mindanao while implementing lighter “state of emergency” measures in other regions. Under political pressure from the Duterte administration, the TV network ABS-CBN closed in 2020, and independent outlets like Rappler have been silenced while journalists have been killed with impunity. Police killed over 12,000 people, according to some estimates, as part of a deadly “war on drugs.” Throughout, Duterte remained popular.

Marcos has said he will continue Duterte’s drug war, which is still broadly popular among Filipinos. He has also vowed to continue to shield it from the International Criminal Court, which has announced plans to conduct an investigation despite Duterte pulling the Philippines from the ICC in retribution. ICC investigators, Marcos said, can come to the Philippines as “tourists,” but they should not expect the government to cooperate.

This doesn’t bode well for an era of human rights reform after rights were trampled upon under Duterte. The European Parliament passed a resolution on February 17 to withdraw the zero-tariff privilege enjoyed by Philippine export companies if the government does not set benchmarks to comply with human rights objectives, investigate unsolved killings of drug suspects and activists, and release Senator Leila de Lima, who remains in jail on drug charges in what is widely believed to be a politically motivated case. In response, the Philippine government called the resolution “misguided” and said it was based on “fake news.”

Marcos has not said whether he would release de Lima, although he’s probably not dying to see her walk free. And those seeking justice for slain activists under a new administration, including the dozens falsely labeled as “communists” under Duterte, are likewise not optimistic. Marcos had just turned 15 years old when his father announced on television that, due to a “communist threat” believed by many to be exaggerated, he was immediately placing the country under martial law. The elder Marcos then went on to rule by decree for 14 years, during which his family pilfered billions in wealth from the country’s coffers. Nobody is convinced Bongbong is running for president to correct his father’s wrongs.