Despite thumping Marcos win, change unlikely
MANY inside and outside the Philippines are shocked that the country elected Ferdinand Marcos Jr, president.
Filipinos have less reasons to be since the writing had been on the wall showing Marcos the front-runner since last year.
Foreigners, especially from these parts, mostly take these developments as confirmation of the perceived soap opera that is Philippine politics.
With two Aquinos, the daughter of the man who lost to Marcos Sr and an ex-movie star as the most recent presidents, why should anyone be surprised that Marcos Jr now will take after the father, too?
John Leo Algo, writing in Rappler.com, the online news outfit started by Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, probably summed it up best: “We have no one else to blame for this mess but ourselves, whether we voted for Marcos or not.”
The Manila commentariat largely grasps at straws when it blames social media for the historical amnesia about the horrors of the latter of Marcos Sr years, allowing the son to claim a historic landslide win (recent presidents had only managed to win by pluralities).
The younger Marcos has dynastic name recall and a recent voter trend for populist strongmen to thank for his victory. It started with Joseph Estrada and resurfaced with Rodrigo Duterte.
Three others since the ouster of Marcos Sr were dynasts (two Aquinos and a Macapagal), signalling the dysfunction Philippine democracy had rapidly descended into since its supposed restoration in 1986.
Thus, the nostalgia for a perceived golden era when the elder Marcos was first elected in 1965 now pulls strongly at voters’ heartstrings, even if it ended ignominiously with martial rule declared near the end of his two elected terms, in 1972.
Marcos Jr now appears almost unassailable with the strong mandate he has secured. But, there is a caveat to this.
It assumes his main opponent, Leni Robredo, representing the liberal democratic tradition that a sizable majority of Filipinos has grown disenchanted with, will concede that his victory was secured fair and square.
With this opposition electorally annihilated, the risk is that it will again move to the streets, potentially triggering a reprise of the crackdown of Marcos Sr and making it difficult for the son to rehabilitate the family’s name and legacy by uplifting the nation.
The hope, of course, is that the new President Marcos can reach out to his opponents, perhaps by acknowledging at least some of the faults attributed to his father.
Malaysia, which exerted much effort to help realise nascent political autonomy in Mindanao, must also be hoping that the new president will be equally magnanimous to the autonomous Bangsamoro government, which came out officially for Robredo.
Our always fraught ties with Manila will probably remain so until and unless there is greater political stability and certainty in the country, something we perhaps yearn in common with the majority of Filipinos.
There is a growing recognition that a Philippine president saddled with just a single, non-renewable six-year term can do little to effect real change, least of all change away from this constitutional straightjacket.
Even less so from another president named Marcos? Post-1986 Philippine elections seem more and more a process for muddling through.
The high popular hopes for real change to benefit ordinary Filipinos with each change of government are more likely to be disappointed than realised, perhaps yet again this time and even despite the resounding vote for Marcos Jr.
Any further disappointment may also sound the death knell for peaceful and meaningful change via the ballot box in the Philippines.