Elections in the Philippines: house election campaign against the dictator's son

Enlarge image

Election rally for candidate Leni Robredo;

according to polls, it is currently in second place

Photo: Ciriaco Santiago/Getty Images

36 years ago they chased the dictator out of the country.

Now they want the dictator's son as their next president.

Supporters of Ferdinand Marcos Junior, son of Ferdinand Marcos Senior, who ruled the Philippines under martial law for 21 years, stand in the forecourt of a large shopping mall in Pampanga, just outside the capital Manila, on the last Friday in April.

They shout: »Marcos, Marcos!«

When asked why they are here, they say: "Marcos killed a lot of people, but he made our country safer."

"He stole money, okay, but we profited from him."

"With Marcos gone, our lives got worse."

People wave Philippine flags and wear red shirts, the color of their candidate.

It's afternoon, clouds are pushing in front of the sun, otherwise it would be even hotter.

They distribute small snacks and water, hold posters.

Dancing, singing to the campaign song, a propaganda anthem from the days of dictator Marcos disguised in new pop.

The presidential elections will take place in the Philippines on May 9th.

Rodrigo Duterte is stepping down, the man who ruled from 2016 and drew international criticism for his war on drugs.

According to surveys, the best chance of his successor is now Ferdinand Marcos Junior, whom everyone in the country calls “Bongbong” Marcos or simply “BBM”.

Marcos Junior, 64, primarily advertises that he wants to set up large infrastructure programs.

"Build, build, build" was the motto under President Duterte.

Marcos was a governor, congressman and senator in the northern Philippine province of Ilocos Norte.

In 2016, he ran unsuccessfully for vice president.

He was convicted of tax fraud, among other things, and gave false information about his studies at Oxford University.

At the end of the election campaign, no question is more pressing than this: how is it that Filipinos are poised to elect a dictator's son as their next president?

The man whose family drove the country into a deep economic crisis in the 1980s that is still having an impact today;

who had thousands killed extrajudicially, disregarded human rights, traumatized the population;

whose family embezzled $10 billion and took it out of the country?

The people finally drove Marcos Senior out of the country in 1986 in the People Power Revolution, he died in exile in Hawaii.

The Marcos clan returned home in the early 1990s humiliated and more tolerated than welcomed.

Since then, the family has tried to shed its reputation for being greedy and corrupt and downplaying the brutality under the dictator Marcos.

One answer to the question of why Marcos Junior could become the next president can be found where Filipinos can be found spending an average of 10 hours a day: the internet.

They spend more time on social media than any other country in the world.

And many users are poorly educated and don't know the difference between legitimate and dubious senders.

The main source of information is Facebook.

Throughout the election campaign, Marcos Junior portrayed himself as a man who wants to bring unity;

much more: In his video blog on YouTube, a highly professional channel that millions follow, Bongbong Marcos has been working on reinterpreting history for years, speaking of the "golden era" under his father.

Which makes the current election campaign not only a vote on the future of the Philippines, but also on how future generations will view their country's past.

Should the Marcos family come back to power, and observers assume that they will, they should do everything they can to paint over past crimes - and see to it that they can no longer be prosecuted.

"I can't spend another six years in darkness"

The communications scientist Fatima Gaw researches the election campaign strategies of the Marcos family at the University of the Philippines in Manila.

The Marcos clan, she says, has been working on historical falsification for decades and has been preparing for its return to power for a long time.

“We are dealing with a war of oblivion.

For years, the Marcos family has spread untruth after untruth on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.

They presented themselves as victims of fake news.

You talked about the golden years under Marcos Sr. until people started to believe it.”

Observers such as Fatima Gaw or the Philippine Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa say that the Marcos family primarily addressed young people in their misleading contributions.

More than half of the 65 million eligible voters in the Philippines are between the ages of 18 and 30;

most of them did not witness the atrocities of the Marcos regime and are easily manipulated.

In January, Twitter deleted more than 300 accounts from Bongbong Marcos for violating the rules on manipulation.

In April, Facebook company Meta announced it had deleted 400 campaign-related accounts in the Philippines for violating the platform's standards.

The Catholic Church, which is influential in the country, also said it was appalled by "the attempt to destroy our collective memory by spreading lies".

Marcos himself describes the allegations as fake news, he has nothing to do with internet trolls.

He largely avoided the classic media during the election campaign and rejected almost all TV debates.

Why ask critical questions when you can spread your messages through your own powerful channels?

Vice President Leni Robredo is catching up in polls

In second place in the polls is Leni Robredo, currently Vice President and one of the harshest critics of the Duterte government.

Communications scientist Gaw says Robredo lost the battle on the internet long ago.

She understood too late the power of social media and the damage it can do when trolls spend years working away from the distortion of reality.

"The only chance that Robredo still has," she says, "is the fight outside the internet, in real life." Robredo, who is primarily the candidate of the middle class and students, must now consciously put his faith in the street, on the Election campaign with volunteers who do what the internet can't do: maintain a direct exchange with the people.

Like on a stiflingly hot Sunday afternoon in Bambang, Manila, a neighborhood with small street stalls and men boiling water for rice and tea on open fires.

This is where Cham Orbe meets her fellow campaigners.

They go out every weekend.

Hoping to turn the polls in the last few days before the election.

In their pockets they have masks, posters, cooking aprons, disinfectants that they hand out to people in the streets.

All in pink, the color of Leni Robredo's election campaign.

"People ask us: If Marcos is a criminal, why isn't he in prison?"

According to Robredo's spokesman, two million volunteers have volunteered in recent weeks to support their candidate in the final stretch of the election campaign.

Among them are many first-time voters and those who are still too young to be allowed to vote.

Borey, 24, says: »We need a president who fights corruption.

Who has a white waistcoat.

I can't spend another six years in darkness.

We young people want to be able to breathe again, we need a fresh start, freedom.« She talks about how the outgoing President Duterte had thousands shot in raids and his critics imprisoned.

His daughter Sara is taking over as vice president under Marcos.

The fact that Duterte could now be followed by an alliance between the Marcos and Duterte families is unbearable for campaigner Borey.

Robredo, a lawyer, has campaigned massively against Duterte's drug war, sending aid packages to those in need during the pandemic.

According to the Philippine investigative portal Tsek.ph, Robredo is the main victim of the Marcos-related troll campaigns.

The story, mostly misogynistic, goes like this: Robredo is a communist, she stutters, is unintelligent, incapable.

»The last man standing is a woman«

An older woman approaches Borey.

She cries.

Her granddaughter has blood poisoning and kidney problems.

You have to raise money for the drugs.

"Can you help, can Leni Robredo help us?" she asks Borey.

She notes the woman's number and promises to get in touch.

Two men stand at the corner and say they are taxi drivers.

'We've already chosen.

For Leni,” says one.

“She gives answers to questions.

Marcos doesn't answer questions.

We've all become poor in the last two years.«

Traveling with Borey and her friends means getting to know directly what moves the people who now have a choice.

The Philippines is emerging from two years of pandemic, one of the strictest lockdowns in the world and consistently high infection rates.

Children were not allowed outside the door for months, the public schools are still closed, and there are online classes.

Many students may never return to the education system.

Poverty has increased.

Homelessness has increased.

The gaps between the poor and the rich have increased.

But the campaigners also see on the street how well the Marcos family's online campaign is working.

“People ask us: if Marcos is a criminal, why isn't he in prison?” People had forgotten about corruption, instead believing the story that Marcos had made the Philippines the “Tiger of Asia”.

“They say Marcos fights the elite.

And yet he is the elite!«

“Make the Philippines great again” is a Marcos slogan.

He falls to the bottom of a population that for years has gone to bed with such questions: whether the job is safe;

how to feed the children, how to cope with the increased food prices.

"That's Marcos territory over there," Borey says, pointing to a small vegetable market.

The group passes a stand selling grilled hamburgers for 70 pesos (1.20 euros), next to a large Marcos poster.

Two women sell smoked mackerel.

"We choose Marcos," says one.

“We want to be governed well.

I heard his father was a strong leader.

The Marcos family is a family of leaders.”

Leni Robredo has caught up in recent polls.

Hundreds of thousands come to their rallies.

They are organized like festivals - with bands, food courts, light shows;

many there wear T-shirts with inscriptions: »The future is female« or »The last man standing is a woman«.

"We're also feeling the pink Leni wave here," says election worker Borey.

»The only thing we can do to counter the lies of the Marcos family on the Internet is to listen in real life.

On the streets."

There, says Borey, where Ferdinand Marcos Junior will never show himself, certainly not, should he actually become president.

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