Ferdinand Marcos, Jr, popularly known as Bongbong, will be the Philippines’ 17th president starting on 30 June. How did the son and namesake of a man known worldwide as a brutal dictator and one of the world’s worst kleptocrats, who drove his country to economic bankruptcy, manage to win an electoral landslide 36 years after his father was ousted?
Philippine democracy is in tatters after six years of Rodrigo Duterte’s government, notorious for brazen killings under its ‘war on drugs’, muzzling the media and disregarding the rule of law. With Duterte’s daughter Sara elected to the vice-presidency, it seems that the Philippines’ future is getting more and more similar to its dark past.
Patronage politics continues to dominate
The wide margin won by the Marcos-Duterte tandem, as well as the results of the Senatorial race, proved that Philippine elections are still dominated by the well-entrenched machineries of political dynasties which rely on patronage politics.
— source globaljustice.org.uk | Dorothy Guerrero | 9 June 2022