Why The Philippines Is Electing A Dictator’s Son
“The difference lies in the culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics.” - Lee Kuan Yew.
The Philippines presidential elections are currently underway with Ferdinand ‘Bong Bong’ Marcos Jr. all but certain to win the nation’s 17th presidential election, the 6th since the implementation of the 1987 constitution and the 2nd rejection of liberalism in a row. The 1987 constitution was written following the removal of the long standing dictator, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who ruled and pillaged the Philippines between 1965 and 1986. The question that many are asking themselves is how a nation whose constitution was created following a dictatorship under the pretence of liberal values can show such high support for any strongman, yet alone the dictator’s son.
The 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution which ousted Marcos Sr. and his wife Imelda, who has come to symbolise the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by Filipino elites at the expense of the nation due to her thousands of pairs of designer shoes, was believed to have ushered in a new liberal society in the Philippines. In fact, my mother, who was in her mid-teens at the time was encouraged by her parents to help to give food and drink to some of the ~2,000,000 who took to the streets. Despite being within living memory, Marcos Jr. and his unapologetic platform have been tolerated and are now even supported by Filipinos.
This should not come as a surprise for three main reason. Firstly because Marcos Jr.’s election follows 6 years of strongman Rodrigo Duterte’s rule, secondly, that the People Power Revolution failed to create a well functioning state and finally because the Filipino media landscape has helped to create societal neurosis by distorting the concept of truth.
Firstly, the election of Marcos Jr. is not the first presidential election to reject the existing system. Instead, this came in 2016 with the election of Duterte. Duterte has fundamentally altered the Filipino political system by running on an openly illiberal, populist ticket and by focusing on actions which gain publicity and nationalistic support rather than which truly benefit Filipinos.
The most obvious example of this is Duterte’s war on drugs - a topic which took me back to the Philippines in 2019 to study in depth during my high school studies. Duterte’s war on drugs was built to create a common enemy which a divided nation could rally around and blame for social ills. This all too common method of creating nationalistic fervour comes straight out of the dictator’s handbook and allowed Duterte to minimise the need to be perceived as taking meaningful action in other aspects of society. Whilst the war on drugs was reliant on a mostly fabricated issue and clearly had a negative impact on the Philippines as a whole, it succeeded in contributing to the narrative in which Duterte was the only person who could ‘save’ the country.
Through this lens, the election of Marcos Jr. is simply an extension, albeit an extreme extension, of the new Duterte style of leadership. This fact is undoubtable when considering that Marcos Jr.’s running mate is Sara Duterte - Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter. The question must therefore be how and why was Duterte elected and how did this style of leadership maintain such high support despite its objectively poor performance? An overview of the People Power Revolution and the time shortly following is necessary in order to understand how Duterte’s election was possible. The overthrowing of Marcos Sr. was not done in the name of liberalism as the media may have suggested.
As my mother knew from her experiences in the Philippines and as I know from my experiences growing up in Bahrain during the Arab Spring, the Western media is quick to engage with Western educated intellectuals who can be portrayed as leading coherent ideological battles against dictatorships. Whilst these individuals do exist, revolutions against dictatorships are largely reactive movements combining multiple broad camps wishing for different futures which may or may not be compatible together. In any case, many individual protestors are not revolutionaries in the traditional sense of the word, but rather ares simply angry with the regime and want a change. The nature of the change is unimportant so long as it improved their every day lives.
If discontent is the primary motivation for political change (which may or may not require revolution to achieve), it can be argued that the People Power Revolution and Duterte’s (and by extension, Marcos Jr.’s) election stem from the same root cause despite the different outcomes. Ultimately, a lack of faith in the current system stemming from desperation, poverty and inequality pushed the nation to take drastic action in both events.
Liberalism was not truly the guiding light of the People Power Revolution, and it was not a national ideology before, during or after the first Marcos regime. In fact, the Philippines lacks many unified beliefs with the exception of Catholicism (with the notable exception of large Islamic communities in the southern region of Davao where Duterte was previously Mayor). Local communities spread out across thousands of islands have strong local cultures which impact their larger Filipino identities. This highlights that geography makes it difficult to create homogeneous beliefs and has the added difficulty of making it difficult for the state to play an active role in remote areas.
These ideological and physical challenges have lead to a weak state. Furthermore, historical factors (due to the nation’s colonial past in combination with the aforementioned variables) means that the government has failed to provide basic services to much of the population. Additionally, high levels of corruption and poverty have created cyclical, systematic failures which cannot be easily addressed. This is compounded by constitutional documents which have created an unrepresentative voting system as well as the political dynasties which wield undue power. These are fundamental structural problems which must be addressed but which cannot fix the Philippines political system without strong incentives for all to create a fairer system and a lot of time.
Executive power in the Philippines has swelled and both state and non-state actors have failed to hold the this branch to account. In fact, a high ranking provincial lawyer confirmed the existence of Duterte’s ‘arrest or kill quotas’ which require local police forces to arrest of kill a certain number of suspected drug users or pushers within a certain time period. This means that legal processes are not followed, extrajudicial killings are tolerated and innocent civilians are knowingly wrongly accused or killed. The lawyer confirmed that they and the policemen were afraid of retaliation should they fail to follow orders. This is a clear example of an over-inflated executive which does not even pretend to follow the legislative or judicial branches.
Even the media has largely failed to hold the government to account. Fear of high rates of journalist assassination and persecution had led many media companies to self-censor. Even where legally protected, a lack of faith in the ability of checks on the executive has caused many media outlets to take the government line of many issues. In other cases, the media is openly an extension of the government propaganda machine. When I asked a CEO of one of the largest newspapers in the Philippines how they deal with conflicting governmental and non-governmental data he responded by telling me that it was not their job to fact check the government.
Fear, propaganda and desperation are conditions which have caused the re-writing of history. Failure to liberalise caused a dictatorship and the dictatorship caused a revolution. Perhaps we are approaching this second step once again. At each reactive step, the national narrative gets re-written, truth looses value and a social neurosis of self-deception takes place. This doesn’t change anything but it gives people hope within a dangerous, nationalistic paradigm. Unfortunately, this is a false hope. The reign of Marcos Jr. will be viewed differently depending on one’s own political and ideological perspectives however the facts will never be on the side of tyranny and dictatorship.
Only by integrating concepts such as human rights, transparency, accountability and democracy into every aspect of Filipino society;
only if the Filipino people decide that these values are worth fighting for;
only then can issues such as corruption, poverty and inequality be addressed in the long term.
