Marcos Jr will shape Philippines in his own way
In less than a week after the presidential elections, the shape of things to come in the Philippines can already be seen. As the new governing team led by president- elect Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr, aka “Bongbong Marcos,” or BBM for short, said the winning team will “hit the ground running” as indeed it is expected to.
Congratulatory messages have come to BBM from nearly all countries and particular attention has been given to the messages.
President Xi Jinping’s congratulatory note was the earliest and the letter was hand carried by Ambassador Huang Xilian to president- elect BBM himself. US President Joe Biden called BBM and expressed a subtle reminder about “human rights.”
BBM was solicitous with Biden, inviting Biden to his June 30 inauguration assuring that “the Philippines has always held the United States in high regard as a friend, an ally and a partner.” Should that worry the Filipino anti- Mutual Defense Treaty, anti- EDCA ( Enhanced Defense Cooperation) and anti- VFA ( Visiting Forces Agreement) advocates?
While President Rodrigo R. Duterte had successfully dangled the abrogation of the Mutual Defense Treaty without finally severing it, the peril of Ukrainization in the Asia- Pacific is rising as the US and NATO are heightening the decibels calling for the “protection of Taiwan” from a nonexisting threat and intensifying war games in the north of the Philippines.
We have learned how suave BBM is in handling conflict, his unique quality endearing to many Filipinos is equanimity in the face of aggression and hostility. While the US officialdom is deferential to BBM today, the US media has not given an inch and sustains its black propaganda lambasting the “dictator’s son” from CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to John Oliver on HBO.
The US has started on the wrong foot in heavily slandering the winner of the presidential elections in the Philippines, US media’s constant black propaganda will not help the US in cultivating good relations with the new administration. The Filipino people are, however, now perceiving that the US is ready to push for “regime change” as soon as BBM is inaugurated as president using the usual strategies of raising tens of thousands of urban middle class to rally and demonstrate, interrupt normal functioning of government and conspire with military factions to oust a legitimate government. When the US ousted the elder Marcos using these tactics, the significance of US economic and military clout of the Philippines was overwhelming, but today the US is no longer in such a preeminent position. Any regime change strategy is bound to fail.
Domestically, the US minions called “Amboys” ( that is American Boys) in the Philippines are following the “regime change” playbook against the BBM- Sara administration even before its inauguration. There are daily demonstrations alleging vote fraud, student activists boycotting classes, paid rabble barging onto election regulator’s offices.
The usual Amboy suspects in media slander BBM relentlessly with opinion pieces reacting to the BBM win:
“Start pimping our women to Chinese opportunists.” US ersatz Nobel winner Maria Ressa writes, “Marcos win will spur more disinformation.”
Naturally, the agitation is not working with the unassailable win of BBM and Sara Duterte, but the Amboys keep pushing their luck with the spigots from additional $ 500 million anti- China information fund from the US Congress this year. The rabble rousers are a few hundred but the pro- US local media make them seem like the Maidan demonstrations.
The picture I am painting here is how the early aftermath of the 2022 Philippine presidential elections looks like. The present look messy and tentative, as it’s expected. But the future looks bright, BBM- Sara has a firm landslide majority win, the Western predators have been significantly weakened and it “regime change” threats are only inflated by media.
The official canvassing of the votes by Congress is not expected to face delays with the massive landslide victory of BBM- Sara.
Between now and June 30 when the new president is sworn in, we will see how a BBM- Sara governance take shape.