REBRANDING A KLEPTOCRATIC FAMILY

Saro Thiruppathy writes that Marcos’ victory was aided by a misinformation campaign on social media and enabled by voter amnesia of past horrors

The presumptive president-elect of the Philippines is the son of former President Ferdinand Marcos who was ousted by a people power revolution in 1986 due to his brutal and corrupt regime, which had existed since 1965. Ferdinand and his wife Imelda then fled to Hawaii with their children, and he eventually died there.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr., also referred to as Bongbong Mar­cos, was a Senator until he threw his hat in for the presidency. And the vice president-elect is Sara Duterte-Carpio – daughter of incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte is a strongman who is accused of having thousands of Filipinos killed as a result of his ‘war on drugs.’ Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it has authorised an official inquiry into alleged crimes against humanity in the Philippines by Duterte.

This unholy political marriage between the son of a brutal dictator and daughter of a killer of drug users doesn’t bode well for the rights and freedoms of the people.

Nevertheless, in spite of the long shadows cast by these notorious men, over 30 million Filipinos cast their ballot for Marcos Jr., more than double that received by outgoing Vice President Leni Robredo.

However, many Filipinos are quite shocked by this victory and concerned about what the future holds in terms of democracy.

Bongbong Marcos wasn’t taking any chances with his bid for the presidency particularly because of his family’s gruesome history and therefore, set about implementing a decades long rebranding campaign that successfully changed the perceptions that arose in context of his family’s name and image.

This process of insidious lying was later fast tracked through social media and ended up portraying the Marcos family as victims rather than villains.

THE TRUE STORY His father ruled for 21 years and imposed martial law for about half that period. It’s believed that tens of thousands of Filipinos were imprisoned, tortured and/or murdered for criticising the government, or being per­ceived to have done so.

In addition to brutalising his people, Ferdinand also stole about US$ 10 billion from his country.

The family lived lavishly and spent stolen lucre effortlessly on expensive artworks, jewellery and properties in other countries. All this was happening as debt was spiralling out of control and millions of Filipinos lived in dire poverty.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled that Ferdinand Marcos and his family had committed fraud on a monumental scale and ordered his surviving relatives to repay millions of dollars stolen from the people.

Since Ferdinand and Imelda are supposed to have earned only 304,372 dollars during the 21 years they occupied the palace, the court ruled that their assets and properties were “patently disproportionate” to their salaries as public officials.

This disproportionate collection of assets was gained by stealing from the treasury, taking bribes on government contracts, seizing private enterprises and helping themselves to monies obtained through foreign loans.

GRAFT AND DEBT The family’s supporters claim that the Marcos regime was beneficial to the nation and this can be seen in the many infrastructure projects that are worth millions of dollars. But others say that these projects were funding widespread corruption through high value building contracts being awarded to family and friends.

Funds from the World Bank and other lending institutions had disappeared while the Filipino people themselves did not reap any benefits and only inherited a ballooning debt burden.

Imelda Marcos has had 900 civil and criminal cases filed against her upon her return to the Philippines. They range from embezzlement and corruption to tax evasion. Many cases were dismissed due to the lack of evidence and some convictions were overturned on appeal.

Nonetheless, in 2018, she was sentenced to a long prison term for using Swiss entities during the Marcos reign to channel embezzled monies amounting to some US$ 200 million. However, she is still free on bail as the case is being appealed.

It seems that Bongbong Marcos has a very different perception of his father’s reign of corruption and terror, and refuses to apologise for it or acknowledge the atrocities that Ferdinand was responsible for.

Instead, he rewrote the narrative about his family and the golden era of martial rule, which enjoyed abundant growth and prosperity – and an era of plenty that could exist once more if the Marcos family returned to power. He then used social media influ­encers to take this story to the grassroots.

The amnesia experienced by Filipinos of their brutal past and lack of accountability by Marcos Jr., is distressingly familiar; and the fact that social media can be used so blatantly to manipulate people is also extremely disconcerting.

Regrettably the future does­n’t look bright for Filipinos at the social, economic or political levels because the apple doesn’t seem to have fallen far from the tree.