Philippine dictator’s son Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jnr runs for president, sparking anger from his father’s victims

Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr, the only son and namesake of the late Philippine dictator, is running for president in next year’s election.

Marcos Jnr filed his certificate of candidacy on Wednesday, saying he intended to provide a “unifying leadership” so the country could “face the Covid-19 crisis and reopen our economy”.

This will be his first tilt at the top job; in the last election he lost the vice-presidential race to Leni Robredo, who is expected to file her own certificate of candidacy for president on Thursday. Forty others have already entered the race, including two others with the surname “Marcos” but who are not related to the dictator. Candidates can file until October 8 but substitutions are allowed until November 15.

The reign of Marcos Snr, who came to power in 1965 and ruled as a dictator under martial law from 1972 to 1981, was marked by the torture of suspected communists and extrajudicial killings. American historian Alfred McCoy has estimated that the regime murdered at least 3,257 Filipinos and tortured more than 35,000 before Marcos Snr was overthrown by an army-backed “People Power” uprising in 1986. The Presidential Commission on Good Government estimated that the Marcos family plundered around US$13 billion and saddled the country with US$26 billion in debt.

As yet, Marcos Jnr does not have a vice-presidential running mate. He said that the “original plan” was to adopt President Rodrigo Duterte as his running mate, but this fell through when Duterte announced on Saturday that he would abandon his bid and quit politics. The constitution allows presidents to serve only a single, six-year term. Duterte was replaced in the VP race by his former aide-turned-Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, but Marcos Jnr demurred when asked if he would adopt Go as his running mate.

“How is that, we would be called ‘Bongbong-Bong’ or ‘Bong to the third power’. Maybe, we’ll see.”

He also denied having discussed a tandem bid with Duterte’s daughter, the Davao City mayor Sara Duterte who is the front-runner in public opinion polls despite not having officially entered the race. Presently, Sara Duterte is signed up to defend her position in the mayoral race, though there is increasing speculation that this may be a smokescreen and that she will run with Marcos Jnr.

Marcos Jnr said he was undecided as to whether he would attempt to get the other two candidates named “Marcos” disqualified as “nuisance candidates”.

Tiburcio Marcos and Maria Aurora Marcos filed separately, on October 3 and October 5. Tiburcio filed through a representative but Maria Aurora did so in person, by herself, telling media that while she did not have the backing of a political party, she was “determined and true to her desire to help all Filipinos attain change.” She promised free hospital treatment, higher wages and to eradicate corruption.

‘Now or never’

Political analyst Ramon Casiple said it was “now or never” for Marcos Jnr because his mother, Imelda, was 93 years old and it was she who wielded the family’s political power, through various political coalitions.

“These kinds of coalition can be maintained only as long as Imelda is alive and in charge,” said Casiple, co-founder of the political think tank Novo Trends and the executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform.

News that Marcos Jnr had entered the race sparked protests online and in front of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights by victims of the dictator’s abuse.

Judy Taguiwalo, Duterte’s former social welfare secretary, who was tortured during the Marcos Snr era, said that by running for the highest post, the dictator’s son was “spitting on the graves of the dead and on the faces of the victims of the Marcos dictatorship.”

Before Marcos filed his candidacy, at least 31 youth groups in the University of the Philippines had banded together to oppose his candidacy and more from other universities are expected to join.

During a brief press conference on Wednesday, Marcos brushed off questions about various court rulings on his family’s ill-gotten wealth and on human rights abuses during his father’s reign. “In my view, those questions have all been answered,” he said.

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Casiple said the dictator’s legacy was no longer the main issue. Rather it was his son’s lack of preparedness for the job and his lacklustre performance as a legislator.

As a senator, Marcos Jnr didn’t “have a record you can cite where you can say he is presidential material”, Casiple said.

Senate records show that in his six years in office, Marcos Jnr was the main author of only one law, the postponement of an election for youth village representatives. In fact, as the chairman of the senate committee on local governments, Marcos had torpedoed the signing of a law that would have legalised a peace deal between the government of president Benigno Aquino III and the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

When Duterte became president, a similar peace deal with the same key features swiftly passed Congress.

Bait and switch?

University of the Philippines political science professor Jean Franco said it was too early to rule out a “bait-and-switch strategy” in which Sara Duterte – who has already filed a certificate of candidacy to run for mayor of Davao City – would later enter the fray, either as a presidential candidate or a vice-presidential one with Marcos Jnr as her running mate.

“That could be part of the strategy,” she said. “Lately, Sara and the Marcoses do not seem to hide the fact that they are close. This means that it is not difficult to think that they are all planning something, making the elections some form of guessing game, to their supposed advantage”.

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Casiple said of the 41 candidacies filed so far, there were just four “serious contenders”: Senator Manny Pacquiao; the Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Domagoso; Marcos Jnr; and Senator Panfilo Lacson.

Marcos Jnr and Lacson filed at the same time and fist-bumped each other in front of the media.

Lacson, 73, once served Marcos Snr as a young lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary, the military unit that became notorious for the torture and disappearances of suspected communists.

The election is expected to take place on May 9.