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What would a Marcos Jr. presidency mean for democracy?
Lying and deception are the bread and butter of both Marcos and Duterte’s brand of politics.
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Presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. attends a campaign rally in Taguig, in suburban Manila, on April 24, 2022, ahead of the presidential election on May 9. (Agence France-Presse/Jam Sta Rosa)
P
er the last Pulse Asia presidential survey before the May 9 elections, former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. topped the ladder as the presidential candidate with 56 percent voter preference versus second placer Vice President Leni Robredo, the face of the opposition, with only 23 percent. The tremendous gap between Marcos Jr. and VP Robredo has only procured the former with confidence.
Many Filipinos question the reliability of the surveys as Robredo lifts her superstar status and even garnered a crowd estimated at nearly 1 million in her final miting de avance (speech). Despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s non-endorsement of any candidate, it is an open secret that Marcos Jr. has his blessing due to the fact that the president’s daughter Sara Duterte is running as vice president under Marcos Jr. 's ticket.
As President Duterte vacates the country’s seat of power, marred with controversies such as the exit of the Philippines from the International Criminal Court (ICC) after avoiding investigation into the drug war killings, his cozy relationship with China, the increasing prices of goods and services, the dismal militarized pandemic response and the continued dismantling of democratic institutions with attacks against human rights defenders and activists happening left and right, the next president of the country has a lot to do in terms of restoring and protecting democratic institutions.
But what if the next six years (or more) of a post-Duterte Philippines are just another brand of “antidemocratic and antirights” governance? There are three reasons why this would happen under a Marcos Jr. presidency.
First, Duterte has allowed Marcos Jr. to be stronger and more relevant than ever. Before 2007, not a single Marcos family member was on the national political scene, until Marcos Jr. and his sister Imee slowly penetrated the Senate.
In 2016, Marcos Jr. ran for vice president but lost to Robredo by a very small margin. This is not to say that nothing was happening behind closed doors. As the Marcoses have been catching up in the national political scene, they have also been active in historical distortion through a mass campaign filled with nostalgia and myth-building, implying that their father’s dictatorial rule was the golden era of the Philippines.
Lying and deception are the bread and butter of both Marcos and Duterte’s brand of politics. The culture of lies and deception through misinformation and troll farms has made democracy more vulnerable.
