Marcos Jr leads count to be next Philippine president
THE son of Ferdinand Marcos was leading an unofficial count of votes cast on Monday to be the next Philippine president, 36 years after his father was ousted over widespread corruption and human rights abuses.
Former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr received more than 23 million votes to replace President Rodrigo Duterte, based on a partial count of election returns sent to a separate official server for transparency reasons.
Vice President Leni Robredo, a human rights lawyer who beat Marcos Jr in 2016, was in second place with more than 10.9 million votes. In third place is boxing icon and senator Manny Pacquiao with more than 2.1 million votes.
Marcos Jr’s running mate, Sara Duterte-Caprio, daughter of the outgoing president, was also leading the vice presidential race, with 22.7 million votes. Robredo’s running mate, Senator Francisco Pangilinan, was at a distance second with some 6.8 million votes.
Under the Philippine electoral process, the official tallying of votes cast for president and vice president will be done by the Senate and the House of Representatives, when they resume session on May 23. The new government
officials will be sworn in on June 30.
Marcos Jr’s family was chased out of the country by a “people power” revolt in 1986 and their family ed to the United States in self-imposed exile.
They were allowed to return to the Philippines in 1992, three years after Marcos Jr’s father died in Hawaii.
Members of the family have since been elected in various government positions, and a presidential win for Marcos Jr would complete the Marcos family’s return to power in the Philippines.
Victims of human rights abuses under the dictator’s rule have vowed to continue the fight.
“It’s really unthinkable that Marcos Jr could become the Philippines’ 17th president,” said Bonifacio Ilagan, 71, a student leader who was tortured after being arrested in 1974 while the country was under martial law.
“But if this is the reality, this is going to be another phase in our struggle.” Marcos Jr has never acknowledged the abuses that took place while his father was in power.
Ilagan believes he is likely to take steps to “erase the memory of those who have fallen during the fight against the dictatorship” in a “fullscale revision of history.”
Marcos Jr voted early in his hometown of Batac City in Ilocos Norte province, 386 kilometres north of Manila.
He then went to a Catholic church to meet his mother, former first lady Imelda Marcos, notorious for having a lavish lifestyle and amassing more than 3,000 pairs of shoes during her husband’s rule.